


Twice Shy

by JaneSkazki



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:49:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24594823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneSkazki/pseuds/JaneSkazki
Summary: Chekov behaves irrationally. The author goes to extraordinary lengths to devise an explanation... Looking back, I think this was yet another story that I wrote in the wrong order,
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Twice Shy

**Twice Shy**

**One - Exposure**

The fresh acid scent of the wine in her glass had long since faded, while the liquid itself was warm and its flavour dulled by exposure to the air. Cythee twisted the narrow stem of the glass between her fine white fingers and stared at the tabletop.

"So long!"

"Enjoy yourself!"

The Starfleet officers at the bar turned back to their drinks as yet another of their number left with his arm round the waist of one of the working girls from the bar. The men were a little drunk, a little less inhibited than they had been two hours earlier.

Cythee glanced quickly in their direction. Now only two remained. One older man ignored his local partner for the evening, who had draped herself around his shoulders, kissing his neck. He drank imported Terran whisky and continued to recount some long, complicated story that had been interrupted again and again during the course of the evening. His companion blinked tiredly, but didn't seem bored. He'd turned down two or three of the women, then they'd stopped asking. One of his friends had told the last one who'd approached him to stop bothering him, that he had a girlfriend.

She could see his reflection, distorted and discoloured, in the bowl of the lamp on her table. He was the youngest and the soberest of the men in the group, and when the girls spoke to him, he was polite in saying no. His friends were polite too, as spacefarers went, but treated the girls with little real respect. The youngster spoke to each one as if he might meet her the following morning in the house of a priest, or his mother's office.

Yes. She could bear to have him touch her, if she must.

"Cythee?" One of the few workers remaining in the bar slipped into the seat next to hers, a plump woman with hair so bleached it was almost transparent. "Are you still here?" she asked in her gratingly common accent. "Well, no wonder. No one can see you in the shadows here. Aren't you feeling well? Don't you want to work? I'll lend you the rent for tomorrow, if you want to go get some rest."

Cythee forced herself to smile. "Thank you. I... I'm okay. I had a headache, but it's better now. And I'm about to get the rent."

"Oh? Where from? You think the old guy is going to want to pay for two?"

Cythee cringed at the suggestion. "No. I don't mean that. The other one."

"He's going back to his ship when he's finished that drink. I heard him say so. Shame." The prostitute shrugged, so that her white breasts almost escaped from her dress. "Hey, maybe if we offered two for the price of one, a bit of a show for him, some of these humans like that..."

"No."

Her potential business partner sniffed at the rejection. "Well, it makes more sense than letting him walk out of here. Look, come on. You don't know the game like I do. I know it's hard to start with. You just have to get used to it. Once you've done it a few more times, it's like taking in someone's washing. You can't be too picky, and if you think you're going to get that one without offering something special, you're mistaken. Wait till the other guy goes upstairs with Zaria, so there's no one to tell this girlfriend of his, and then if you and me..."

As if he'd overheard them, the older man stood up, Zaria still on his arm, and threw some Demiran coins on the table. He said something, telling his friend to settle their bill maybe, then led Zaria towards the door.

"Thank you for offering to help, but I can do this on my own." Cythee finished off her wine and stood up, just as the remaining Starfleet officer put down his glass and gathered up the money. She licked her lips, pushed the straps of her dress a little further off her shoulders, and in a good imitation of her colleague, called, "Hey, human!"

***

"Hey, human!"

Chekov looked round wearily. It was late and he was due on the early shift the next morning. Gita would already be tucked up in his bunk waiting for him. He shook his head at the slender native woman, keeping a pleasant smile on his face. But when he turned away from her to go and pay the evening's bill, she moved to block his way.

"Are you deaf?"

"No, I am not deaf, but I am leaving."

"No money? I take AFT. There's no problem."

Demir was very up to date, for a world not yet belonging to the Federation. Chekov's inconsiderable savings were just an eight digit code away by accelerated funds transfer. "I have to leave."

She put her hand on his arm. Her grip was too firm to simply shake off. He glanced around the almost deserted bar. Maybe half a dozen workers remained, and the bartender. It crossed Chekov's mind that they might be intending to rob him, but he dismissed the idea. Demir was renowned for being the safest liberty port in the sector.

She didn't seem drunk, or drugged, just determined. She was beautiful, like many Demiran women, but compared to Gita's grace and modesty, he found himself disliking her garishly painted face and the dress cut in a 'v' down almost to her navel, a 'v' that seemed to be yawning wider by the second. "I have to leave," he repeated. "I'm sorry."

"Get your paws off him, Cythee," the bartender said, glancing across at them as he stacked glasses on the shelf above the bar. "There are plenty more where he comes from."

"Please," Cythee whispered. She tugged on his arm, like an impatient child. "Please. If you don't have any money... it doesn't matter. Come upstairs. Please."

Chekov laughed unhappily. This was the kind of thing Sulu was always claiming happened to him. "I'm sorry. I have... I'm due back on my ship. Thank you for the offer. You're very attractive. I'd like to... but I can't."

He heard one of the other women giggle. "God's tears, Cythee, are you trying to put us all out of business?"

Cythee released his arm. "Just let me show you what I can do, and you'll change your mind. I promise."

At that, every woman in the place turned to watch, along with the barman.

"No, thank you, I..."

She stood on her toes and put her hands together behind his neck. He put his own hands up to pull them apart, but she turned her head to one side and kissed his neck before he could free himself.

Someone screamed.

Chekov felt a blast of cold air as the doors onto the street opened then slammed shut again, rattling glasses on tables. His head was swimming dizzily, but he still struggled to push the Demiran woman away.

Eventually, he thought he succeeded, but when his vision cleared, he realised the bartender had come and dragged her off. She was fighting desperately in the man's grasp.

"What... did she do to me?" Chekov demanded. His neck was aching and he was shivering as if he'd suddenly started a fever.

"Nothing," the bartender said quickly. "She's just a little... over-eager sometimes. I'll get you a drink. On the house. You were drinking vodka, weren't you? Here, Sadi, hold on to Cythee for me."

All the girls had gathered round in a big circle, like nervous children watching a dog fight. As one, they retreated.

The bartender scowled and dragged Cythee towards one of them, but she squealed and almost fell over a chair in her haste to get away.

"What's wrong?" Chekov asked. His head was spinning now. He badly wanted to sit down, but wasn't sure he could reach a chair without falling over on the way.

"Nothing," the barman insisted. He pushed Cythee into a vacant seat. "Stay there, you stupid bitch."

He stepped back, and waited to see if she was going to stay put as ordered. She pulled her head back and spat in his face.

Blood and saliva trickled down the man's cheek.

"She bit you. She's a biter. Oh my God..." One woman fled for the door and out into the night. After a second's hesitation, two more broke and ran after her.

"Bit me?" Chekov put a hand to his throat and felt the place Cythee had kissed. His hand came away with a smear of his own blood. "I didn't feel anything."

The bartender came back to him and tipped his chin up. "It's almost healed."

Chekov pushed him aside. "Why did she bite me?"

"Because he made me wait too long," Cythee answered. "He kept me waiting, and waiting, and he kept putting the price up all the time."

"There was no one suitable," the man said, "and I had other clients. There are hardly any ships in port. Others could pay more. They went first. It's business."

"You knew she was a biter?" one of the other women yelled at him. "I thought this was a clean place!"

"How many more biters are you hiding here?" another demanded. Still giving Cythee a wide berth, the women started to move in on the bartender. He retreated towards the bar. "It's business." he repeated. "It doesn't do you girls any harm."

"Until one of us gets bitten," someone snapped.

"Then he has another client," another voice replied.

"What's... happening?" Chekov asked. He fixed his eyes on the nearest table and made his way to it. He was beginning to feel a little less dizzy, but he was glad to sit down all the same. He fumbled for his communicator, then remembered they weren't allowed on Demir. He thought he could remember seeing a public comm unit somewhere nearby...

A large glass of vodka suddenly appeared on the table in front of him. He glanced up, to find one of the women had brought it. "Drink up," she said, in a sympathetic tone. "You look like you need it."

"What's a... a biter?"

"They drink blood, fresh blood. If they don't, they die."

Chekov blinked at her. "Vampires?"

"What? What's that?" She picked up the glass and held it out to him.

He took it and downed a mouthful. It almost numbed the cold pain in his neck. "Is it a disease?"

She shrugged. "Either that, or a curse. But there's no cure."

"Yes there is," Cythee answered, startling Chekov almost into dropping the glass. "He's the cure."

"Keep your stupid mouth closed!" a male voice snapped.

"Biting a human cures the blood lust," the woman explained crisply. "That's why she bit you. That's why biters pay the brothel keepers in the city, to let them work here where there are humans, off guard and willing to be alone with strangers. That's why Cythee was here."

"You said..." Chekov's head had begun spinning again. "You said there was no cure."

"There never used to be a cure, until the humans came."

"Is it infectious? Will I..."

"No. It takes two bites to make another biter."

Chekov stared at the woman. He wanted to believe her, she sounded so certain of what she was saying. Only he wasn't sure he could.

"I'm going now," Cythee announced. "I'm going home."

"You're not going anywhere until you've paid what you owe me," the bartender announced unsympathetically.

"You know I don't have the money. I told you you'd have to wait until I could persuade my mother..."

"You can call your mother from here if you like."

"How can I call her from here! You're mad!"

"What are we going to do with him?" the woman who'd given Chekov the vodka asked. "Kill him?"

Chekov tried to get out of his chair, but she produced a small projectile weapon from the front of her dress. "Just stay where you are," she suggested. She held it quite steadily, he realised. It was his own dizziness that made the barrel seem to move in irregular circles.

"Of course not," the bartender answered her. "Do you want this place crawling with Starfleet investigators? Not to mention the grease we'd have to pay to our own enforcers. No, I have a much better idea, while Cythee's still here with us."

"I would like to return to my ship," Chekov said. The bartender had sounded reassuringly pragmatic. "They may already be concerned by my absence." He made no effort to play down the threat in the words.

The woman narrowed her eyes. "Which ship?"

"The USS Enterprise."

Plainly, the answer wasn't welcome. "Confound the stupid bitch!" the bartender snapped.

Chekov wondered briefly what type of ship would have been more acceptable: maybe a merchant vessel, with a master keen to keep to schedule, more interested in bonuses for speed than the welfare of his crew. Well, it was too late to start lying now.

"Sadi..."

Chekov's warder looked up, but kept her gun pointed unwaveringly at him. "Yes, Jarha?"

"Nista went out with a human, about an hour ago. He was drinking with this one, wasn't he? Not Zaria's mark, the younger one, right?"

"Yes, she was taking him back to her place over the street. All the rooms upstairs were taken."

Chekov glanced around the room. He felt he was losing track of the conversation. "What are you going to do?"

He was ignored. "Cythee." The bartender, Jarha, walked over to where the woman, the biter, sat.

She smiled complacently. "It's over, Jarha. You can wait for your money, you can wait until I'm ready to pay you. You can't afford to say anything."

He hauled her to her feet. "We'll talk about that when you've made good the damage you've done here. Sadi, hold the gun to his head." 

Chekov froze as Sadi did exactly as she was told.

Jarha pulled Cythee over to his table, pushed his vodka out of the way and forced the woman to her knees beside the ensign's chair. He smiled as Chekov, despite the gun, did his best to edge away from her.

"Bite him again," Jarha ordered.

"I don't need to!" she protested. "I never need to again. I'm cured. He's human and I'm cured. It only takes one bite."

"I'm not interested in that, Cythee. I'm telling you to bite him again, while you still can."

"Why?"

"Why is no concern of yours. Just do it and you can go, home. I won't even make you pay me what you owe."

"Really?" She looked up at Jarha and smiled nervously. "You mean that?"

"Why do you want her to bite me again?" Chekov asked nervously. "You said that it takes two bites to..." He stopped.

"If this one talks about what you did to him, we'll all be out of business. You have me at a disadvantage, Cythee. Do we have a deal?"

She hesitated. Chekov glanced at all three of the Demirans who surrounded him. Sadi stared back, seriously.

"What are you talking about?" Chekov demanded. "What do you mean?"

"Shut up," Jarha told him. He pushed Chekov's head roughly over to one side and moved so that Cythee could lean forward and reach her victim.

"What are you doing?" the ensign asked her urgently. "And why?"

"Jarha wants me to make you a biter like me. How should I know why? Maybe so he can charge you a fortune for a cure. More than he could charge me." She glanced back accusingly at the bartender as she said this but he showed no reaction. "He probably wants to blackmail you."

"Don't..." Chekov pleaded.

"He may not want to kill you, you see. If he does, there'll be questions, investigations, like he said. But I owe him a lot of money... I'm sorry."

Chekov tried to roll out of her reach despite the gun, but Jarha pulled his arms roughly round the back of the chair and held them, while Sadi grabbed a handful of his hair, holding his head still. This time, knowing what was happening, he could feel her teeth tearing through the skin of his throat. He guessed there must be an anaesthetic of some kind in her saliva. It hardly hurt at all but he could feel the gentle suction as she extracted and swallowed a mouthful of blood. He began to shiver at the thought of what she was doing to him. The suction became fiercer, almost painful.

"It's too soon," she complained, breaking away. "I don't want it and it's healing already."

"Bite him again then."

"Please..." Chekov whispered.

"And again."

"It's hurting him," Cythee complained. "I don't want to hurt him."

Chekov was hovering on the edge of a faint. When she moved away, his head fell forward. The triple dose of anaesthetic had left his neck as weak as a baby's.

He felt Jarha and Sadi release him.

"There," Jarha said. "It's done." He raised the ensign's head, lifted the vodka up to Chekov's mouth and tipped the glass. The ensign swallowed reflexively. "Don't worry. I just want you to stay here a few more minutes, then I'll arrange a cure for you."

Chekov looked up at the Demiran. "Why? What are you trying to do?"

"I'm just trying to straighten out this mess, that's all." Jarha moved away, back to the bar. Chekov could hear him talking. Sadi picked the vodka up and offered it to him again, but he waved it away.

Someone knocked loudly on the doors and Jarha yelled, "Let them in."

The group of Demirans who entered, two older men and four that Chekov guessed were around his own age, were wearing native dress. In the part of the city where visitors congregated, Federation fashions had pretty much taken over. These men wore knee length, long sleeved tunics over baggy trousers with cuffs at the ankles. Jarha came back to the centre of the bar and looked at them in a way that made Chekov guess they were considered country cousins.

"You told my family..."

Cythee's voice was barely a whisper. She moved forward, half blocking Chekov's view of the newcomers.

"Here's your daughter, old man."

One of the Demirans nodded. "It's done is it?"

"It's done. But before you can take her, you owe me nine thousand."

"They knew all along!" Cythee exclaimed. "Jarha, you... devil! You son of a whore! How could you?" She moved toward her father. The Demiran backed away sharply.

"I'm cured. That's what he's charging you for. You don't have to be scared of me." She took another step and her father stepped back. "Why are you doing this? I'm cured!"

"Caman, my knife," her father said, in a low voice.

"You don't need a knife" Sadi said in her usual level tone. "I swear, she's cured. She bit this human here. We all saw her."

One of the younger men, Cythee's brothers, Chekov guessed, pulled a long, straight knife that looked as if it belonged in an old fashioned kitchen out of a deep pocket in his tunic and took it over to his father, making a large detour round Cythee.

"Oh, no," the girl pleaded. "Father..."

"Now give the money to this son of a whore blood sucker," the old man said calmly, looking Jarha firmly in the eye. The bartender smiled. A moment later, he had a small canvas bag pushed into his hands.

"Come here, girl."

Cythee turned slowly from one to another of her kin, and each in turn looked away from her. One or two made what looked to Chekov like warding gestures. Another muttered something under his breath and spat into the palm of his hand. The last simply shook his head. She came back finally to her father. "Please... I'm cured. I'm okay now. Everyone knows now, if you bite a human, you're cured. Everyone knows it, Father. Why else are you paying him? I'm cured. I promise you. It's all over."

"Come here," her father repeated. He opened his arms and a wary smile lit up her face. She walked towards him and straight into the knife.

She didn't make much noise as she slid to the floor, but the knife did. It sounded as if someone was hacking their way through a carcase. Then the old man straightened up, his two hands cupping a glossy red mess. "The biter's heart. Now she can rest. Now we can all rest. Get those sheets out, boys. We'll wrap her up in those and take your sister home. She can't lie in temple ground, but we'll find somewhere for her. She didn't ask for this evil to possess her."

The younger men were grim faced but in perfect control of themselves as they produced a collection of improvised shrouds and wrapped their sister. The sheets looked like well worn bed linen, soft and almost translucent with age in the centre, crisp and dense at the edges. They covered her carefully from head to toe, the youngest of them pushing the last strand of her red-blonde hair inside the grave clothes before he stood up to join his brothers. A single tear had escaped to roll down his cheek.

"My little Cythee..." the father crooned

Chekov closed his eyes, and kept them closed. She was a vampire. And now they thought he was a vampire too. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't going to live long enough to find out.

In near silence, the body was carted out of the bar. The door was closed. Chekov opened his eyes again and looked up at Jarha.

"What are you going to do to me?"

Jarha sat down on one of the spare chairs at Chekov's table. "You call them 'vampires', don't you?"

Chekov hesitated. If Jarha just wanted his silence...

"I..."

Jarha held out the tip of his finger to Chekov. It glistened red with the girl's blood. "You're a vampire now. You have to be bitten twice. Now, what will they do when you go back to your ship, if you tell them all this? You saw what happened to sweet young Cythee just now, didn't you? Quite unnecessary. She was cured. Never would have bitten anyone again. But people just won't believe that. You know, good families pay for me to find humans for their wayward kinsfolk to bite, and then they still go and cut their hearts out after. Cure the body and the soul, I suppose. Make doubly sure. Well, when the people you love are at risk, you don't take chances with something you don't understand, that all the doctors say there's no cure for. So, will you go back and tell your captain what's happened here?"

Chekov swallowed, unable to take his eyes off the glistening cap of congealing blood on the man's finger.

"I think you will. I think you'll be as stupid as that dumb bitch. She knew no one really believes you can cure a vampire, not really, not country people, but she still didn't think they'd do that to her. But then, she hadn't just watched it done, had she? What do you think?"

"I won't tell anyone," Chekov said quickly.

"Hm," Jarha said thoughtfully. "I think you might. But if you weren't a vampire any more, you wouldn't need to tell. That would be better. And remember, some people don't believe a vampire is ever cured, not unless you cut their heart out. They think the hunger is gone, but the appetite remains."

The Demiran rose and signalled to Sadi to maintain her watch over the ensign. When the door shut, Chekov straightened. "Please..."

Sadi lifted her gun a little "Just sit there. Jarha won't be long."

"What's he going to do?"

"You'll find out as soon as I do."

When the door finally opened again, Chekov's nerves were frayed to breaking and he bolted upright. A couple of men entered and spoke quickly to Sadi. He was hustled out onto street. It was late, he wasn't sure just how late, and there were few pedestrians about now. Those who were still on the street were homeward bound, heads down, walking quickly. With a gun pushed up against his back, Chekov didn't have much hope of finding help before he was silenced permanently. He tried to balance risks and options. They didn't want to kill him, but if he attracted attention, they'd probably do so anyway. They might kill witnesses too. His disappearance would be awkward, but not as awkward as losing control of him.

They marched him a few hundred metres down the main street, then through a few narrow alleys and finally into a courtyard surrounded by shops and restaurants that had closed for the night.

Jarha was waiting for them, seemingly alone. He was sitting on a bench, drinking out of a carton.

"Good. Now, I need for you to bite someone. Then you can go."

Chekov had had time to think about everything that had happened. "You can't force me to do anything. You don't want to kill me, or do anything to me that would lead to an investigation, or a boycott of this port. You just want to frighten me and I won't let you. Your best option is to release me now."

Jarha nodded. "I see you've been considering our mutual problem. But you don't seem to have taken into account your need for a cure, vampire. You see? I'm only thinking of your best interests. Come here."

Chekov stayed where he was. "I won't risk infecting someone else, just because you promise me a cure. If there is a cure at all, I'd rather trust Federation science to find it."

Jarha laughed. "What if Federation science finds the same cure that Cythee's father used? Hm? Someone give me a knife." He laughed again at Chekov's expression, but the knife that was offered was a mere trinket. Jarha took it and tossed it up in the air, letting it tumble and flash in the glow of the street lighting. It clattered onto the pavement. Chekov's eye followed it, down to the body that lay there, half in the shadows of a row of garbage bins.

Jarha walked over there, picked the knife up, then opened up one of the bins and dropped in his empty carton.

"Do you remember what Cythee said, the second time she bit you?"

"No." Chekov couldn't work out what was happening. He couldn't see why they'd want him to bite some drunken derelict, unless it was an attempt to shame him into keeping silent about the whole evening's events. Anyway, they couldn't force him.

"She said she wasn't hungry and it was healing up. That's what happens when a biter has enough. The wound heals. Now, do you see who this is?"

The Demiran kicked the body, rolling it over so that the face turned into the light. Chekov breathed in sharply, giving himself away before he could choose not to. It was Sulu.

"From your ship, isn't he? Now, don't worry. He's okay. He'll just think he's been robbed. We've removed a few little items to support that. I know this is a very safe liberty port, but there's always a few undesirables."

"I don't know him," Chekov lied desperately.

"But you were drinking with him earlier. Don't be difficult, now, human. I've had enough trouble tonight with Cythee and her little games."

"I'm not going to bite him."

"Really." Jarha bent down, the little knife in his hand. Chekov didn't see what he did, but the Demiran came straight over to him and held out his open palm, smeared with fresh blood.

"Bite him once. That's all. You'll be cured. He won't become a vampire. It takes two bites for that. And if you don't bite him, I expect he'll bleed to death in about three minutes. Your choice."

Chekov knew he was trapped in the same moment he knew he was a vampire. The scent of the blood on Jarha's hand had started his mouth watering.

Jarha smiled at him. "Hungry? I'll tell you something else. If you don't bite him, if you go back to your ship, that hunger will get worse and worse, until they have to lock you up somewhere and you'll rip your hands to pieces trying to claw your way out through the walls so you can bite someone." He pointed to Sulu. "Bite him, once, and no one will ever know."

The Demirans melted away into the dark.

Enough light fell on the ground by Sulu's head for the spreading stain around his shoulder to show clearly. Chekov had no communicator. If Sulu had carried one, which was unlikely, Jarha's men would surely have taken it. The nearest public comm facility might be several minutes away, might take longer to find in an unfamiliar city.

Chekov took a step nearer to his friend.

_They said it takes two bites to make someone a vampire._

He was standing next to the unconscious helmsman now.

_But they could be lying about that._

He knelt down.

_If I don't bite him, he'll die, and it won't matter how many bites it takes to make a vampire._

Chekov carefully tipped up Sulu's chin, to locate the neat little slash under the right ear. He pinched it shut, then pressed it with his thumb, then admitted to himself that neither action did anything to plug the damaged artery.

He hardly thought about what he did next. It was as automatic as comforting a crying child. He bent over the body and put his lips very carefully, very precisely, over the wound. His mouth filled up with salt, metallic warmth. There was no need to suck, no effort required. It was difficult to manage the pulsing blood. Some escaped stickily onto his chin.

After half a dozen mouthfuls he knew, he couldn't have said how, that he'd had enough. And the flow had stopped. He straightened up and felt for the wound. There was still blood, tacky now, all over Sulu's neck and shoulder, soaking his uniform tunic, but the cut had vanished.

The lieutenant was very still and slightly cool.

Chekov realised that the knees of his pants were sodden with blood. Sulu might still be very much in danger of dying from the blood he'd lost already. The helmsman was breathing in slow, shallow breaths, in sharp contrast to Chekov.

The ensign forced himself to think rather than panic. Shops. Where there were shops there would be comm facilities. They hadn't passed any that he'd noticed as they'd entered the court, so he should look for a kiosk by one of the other routes out of the square.

He rolled Sulu into the recovery position, pulled off his own jacket and threw it over the lieutenant for the little extra warmth it would yield, then ran for what looked like an exit. It turned out to be a stairway. He moved round the perimeter, peering into the shadows, and found a metal gate locked across a broad arch. Right. The court was locked. The way they'd come in was probably the only access at night. But a comm kiosk would be on the outside where anyone could use it. Chekov doubled back, found his way out into the street and rounded a corner onto a well-lit, broad thoroughfare. A few windows were still bright. A kiosk glowed with brilliant white light and a green illuminated sign advertised its facilities.

Chekov stopped dead with his finger hovering over the button that would place an emergency call. He had to have an excuse for being here, a reason why he, of all people, should have found Sulu out here a good half kilometre from the district where they'd been drinking.

No, he didn't. He was giving in to the hysteria of the natives. He'd explain, once the immediate emergency was dealt with, exactly what had happened. It wasn't his fault.

_"What assistance do you require?"_

"I'm an officer on leave from the USS Enterprise. Another officer has been injured. We need immediate help."

There was a silence as the Demiran woman at the other end of the call tried to match this with something on her list of standard responses.

_"Would it be best if I put you through to your ship?"_

"Yes. Please."

Very much the best. A Demiran emergency team might have orders to eviscerate suspected vampires on sight.

_"Enterprise."_ Uhura's voice came back more quickly than seemed possible. _"Who needs help?"_

"This is Chekov. Sulu has been attacked. He's lost a great deal of blood. He needs medical help _now_."

_"Location?"_ Uhura said, unflappable as always.

Chekov cursed. It was so much easier with communicators. "I... There's a unit number here..." He wiped away the blood that obscured it with his cuff. "Zero seven five nine four four one. Can't the emergency operator give you coordinates?"

_"I'm sure she can."_ The connection broke for a few seconds. _"I have them. Wait there."_

Chekov started to thank her and realised she'd already gone. He took his hand off the control pad. Sticky fingerprints covered everything he'd touched.

He could say that he'd seen a group of Demirans overpower the lieutenant and drag him away. That if he'd gone to call for help, he might have lost track of where they'd taken him, so he'd followed, but been outnumbered. He intervened... or waited until they'd gone... or...

No. He was going to tell the truth. He was a vampire and he'd been forced to drink Sulu's blood to stop him bleeding to death. He backed out of the sound-proof shell around the call unit and found himself undecided again over what to do. He should get back to the lieutenant but he also had to stay to show the Enterprise medics where Sulu was.

They might think he'd been responsible for the entire attack, that there never had been anyone else.

Somewhere, several blocks away, an emergency siren began to swoop up and down the scale. Of course, Uhura would have passed on the details to the local police. Chekov shivered as he recalled Jarha's reference to 'enforcers'. At the time, he'd assumed that Jarha meant the local police, or some of them, knew what was going on and had as much reason to keep it quiet as Jarha did.

The Enterprise team should be here sooner and they were. The transporter delivered four... five human forms onto the sidewalk.

Chekov braced himself for questions.

"Where is he?"

"Through there, if you don't mind cutting the gate..."

The paramedic had a professional disregard for other people's property when it lay between her and her patient. She took a phaser out and the gate vanished.

Not much heart left to cut out, Chekov found himself thinking. He cursed himself and followed the team, grateful that, for the moment, they were hardly noticing him.

"Okay, he's alive. I can't locate the injury... Chekov, are you sure this is his blood?"

The ensign stepped forward into the beam of the floodlight the team had set up. He could say... only McCoy would test the blood as a matter of course. There was no point trying to pretend it was someone else's.

"Hey, are you injured? You're more of a mess than he is."

One of the security guards turned anxiously to Chekov, ready to help him if necessary.

"I... I was trying to help him. To stop the bleeding. I... "

"Stop the bleeding from where? Where's the injury?"

"His... his neck. I thought. That's what it looked like."

The medic frowned. "Never mind now. We'll beam him direct to sickbay. Mister Scott? Myself and the patient, on my signal. Peters? Visual record before he goes."

Peters held up a tricorder, scanning the scene. The transporter plucked Sulu to safety just as Demiran police began to spill into the courtyard.

"Robbery, most likely," one of them was already saying, even as they came over to the group of Starfleet officers. Chekov looked at them anxiously, wondering if all or only some of them were corrupt, and which were which.

"No sign of any injury, but a great deal of blood. He was unconscious. He had nothing of value on him," Peters reported succinctly.

"Do you mean before or after he was attacked?" the apparent spokesman of the Demiran investigators asked.

"Just now," Peters answered. He looked to Chekov. "Did he have much money with him, cash? Or anything else?"

"He might have had some cash, not much," Chekov answered distractedly. If he admitted what had really happened in front of the Demirans, anything could happen. Better to say the minimum and wait until he was back aboard the ship before he reported the full facts.

"You were with him, were you? See anything? How many of them were there?"

"Three." He couldn't judge how much to say. Better to just answer, not volunteer anything. "Three of them."

"And you? Did they threaten you? Rob you?"

"No, I... we'd split up, earlier. I... I saw them grab him. I followed them... ran after them. They just left him here."

The policeman was moving around the area, checking things. He lifted the lid of one of the garbage bins, then looked across at Chekov for the first time. The ensign felt himself colour under the scrutiny.

"No fight? No struggle?"

"I didn't see everything that happened. I was trying to look out for a comm kiosk, and keep out of sight. I..."

"You're not hurt then?"

"No."

"Is that blood all over you?"

"Before I went to call for assistance, I tried to help him."

"Of course. Would you be able to recognise any of them?"

Chekov's throat froze up. "I'm not sure," he forced out. "I'm sorry."

"Of course," the Demiran repeated. He issued some curt instructions to his men and they fanned out. "How did you all get in here? It should have been locked up."

"They brought him in that way." Chekov pointed. "It was wide open. And the medical team removed the gate at the main entrance."

The policeman glanced at the entrance he'd just used himself. Even the hinges had been disintegrated clear back to the walls."Wish I'd seen that." He went off to look at it, irrelevant though it was to the actual crime.

"Are you okay, Chekov?" Peters asked. "You sound a little... unsure of yourself?"

"I had a few vodkas tonight," Chekov said. Each successive lie seemed to come more easily.

"Do you want to ask Ensign Chekov any more questions?" Peters called. The Demiran turned. "No. I'm sorry, but this is just going to be one of those things with no leads. Unless your guy comes round and can help us with faces. Even then..." He shrugged. "I hope he'll be okay. And I'd like to talk to him later if I can. I just don't expect it to get us anywhere."

He'd given up too easily, far, far too easily, Chekov thought. Peters looked dissatisfied too.

"Well, it's their problem, on their patch," the security officer complained under his breath. "Have you finished with us then?"

"I guess so," the Demiran conceded. He was still fingering the remants of the gate. "I'm glad we don't have weapons like this around here."

***

McCoy had been on shore leave, like many of the crew. Uhura had located and recalled him only a few minutes after Sulu was returned, but he was still grumbling at the delay.

Chapel frowned at him. "You could have said where you could be reached, but I thought you might trust me to handle things once in a while."

McCoy stopped his stream of complaints and gave the last half point of his attention to Sulu, laid out on the diagnostic bed. "I'm sorry. Where's the injury?"

"There isn't one."

"Then whose blood is this?" McCoy gestured at Sulu's uniform, caked to his chest and shoulder.

"The lieutenant's. I can't explain it. He's had two hundred cc's of his own blood from the bank. There's another fifty to run through. I've given him the standard first resort antibiotics. He was hit on the back of the head with something blunt. The concussion appears relatively minor. I'm about to get him cleaned up."

"Fine. Good. Well done. Do we know anything else?"

"Chekov found him. He thought there was an injury to the neck. That's where most of the blood seemed to be."

"Chekov okay?"

"A little jittery, poor kid. Not injured, but you wouldn't know it. He was covered in blood. He'd tried to stop the bleeding, but he couldn't find where it was coming from either. I sent him to get showered and changed."

McCoy nodded distantly, concentrating on the diagnostics. "He hasn't vomitted or coughed it up. This is weird. Let's get his uniform off and check him over."

***

"You were very, very late last night," Gita said next morning, shaking Chekov's shoulder. She sounded neither annoyed nor forgiving, just curious.

The ensign yawned and rolled over, away from her eyes. "There was trouble. Someone..." He stopped. The Demiran police hadn't asked: Peters hadn't asked: once back on the ship, the medics had just rushed Sulu away. There'd been no sign of the captain or Mister Spock. Uhura had the con. After an awful half hour of indecision, Chekov had borrowed a medical tricorder from the biology department and sat in half darkness in the lab, working through the manual, taking every reading he could on himself. Nothing. He was clear. Cured. Like Jarha had said.

Then, and only then, he'd risked going to his cabin.

"...Someone attacked Sulu. They knocked him out. I... I found him." This was a mistake. No way could he lie to Gita. He'd never had reason to try but he knew it wouldn't work. She could always read him as if his emotions were written in thirty metre high capitals on the hull outside.

"Is he okay? Are you okay?"

Ensign Anjali had come sharply awake. She put her arms round him from behind, hugging him tight.

Could vampires lie more easily? Could they influence people not to ask awkward questions?

Anyway, he was no vampire. He was cured. Biting a human is the cure.

Chekov turned round, put his head down on Gita's breast and let her hold him. He knew vampire myths were common in many parts of Terran culture, but he had no idea if the Indian sub-continent subscribed to the concept. Maybe he could tell her. Maybe Gita would be a good place to start...

He looked up towards her face and his lips brushed against the smooth skin of her neck.

***

McCoy finished his reports and wandered out to check on his only patient. Sulu was just waking up, looking groggily confused.

"Hi. You've taken your time coming round."

"Oh. Hell. What am I doing in here?"

McCoy shook his head. "You really don't want to know." The doctor's eyes were scanning all the medical information. "You look in pretty good shape, though, considering. How do you feel this morning?"

"How do I feel about what?" Sulu demanded, his aching head making him impatient. "What happened?"

"You were found about... oh, an hour after midnight, in a yard a good half kilometre outside the evening district. You'd taken a knock on the head and you were covered in blood."

The lieutenant's eyes grew wide. "I don't remember..."

"I was afraid you were going to say that. It was your blood, according to all the tests, but there wasn't a mark on you, apart from the bump on your head and some slight bruising as if you'd been dragged along a ways none too gently. The jacket Lieutenant Harvey said you were wearing when you beamed down was gone, along with whatever you had in your pockets, if anything. Were you carrying much of value?"

Sulu shook his head, then winced at the resulting discomfort. "No. It's mostly electronic cash down there. I only had some small change. You think I was robbed?"

"We don't know. The local police don't know. We've already left orbit. The captain agreed you'd answer questions by subspace link if necessary. What do you remember?"

The lieutenant creased his brow with the effort of remembering. "Uh, let me see. I was drinking with Scotty and Chekov. Harvey and Tannelli were there, and a couple of others. They all went off one by one..."

"I can imagine," McCoy said caustically.

"Well, it's that kind of port, Doctor. Beautiful women..."

"I know, I know. I'm surprised Chekov was with you. I thought he had something going with Ensign Anjali from Botany."

"He just came down for a drink. He was planning to beam back up when Gita's shift ended." Sulu smiled a little. "I'm not used to him being so... quiet."

"Sounds like Anjali's a good influence. Don't knock it. No one else was sober enough to notice you were in trouble. So, you found yourself an attractive young lady?"

"Yes. Very pretty, gorgeous red hair. About my age. Wonderful smile."

"Name?"

"It was... I think she said it was Nesta, or something like that."

"You don't think she might have been involved in whatever happened to you?"

"Well, no, I... She was a little odd, but..."

"Odd?"

"Well, she was a little shy, but we... we got along okay. Then afterwards, I asked her how much I owed her, and she... she was really embarrassed about it. She didn't seem to know how to use the terminal, that kind of thing. And it was obvious she just wanted me to go as soon as possible. I asked if I'd done anything to upset her, if she was okay, you know? And she said no, made some excuse about being tired." He shrugged. "She could have robbed me while I was in her room, if she wanted to. I don't know. I paid her and left, walked down the stairs into the street and..."

"And?"

"And nothing. I don't remember anything else."

"Nothing at all?" a familiar, slightly disbelieving voice asked from the doorway.

Sulu rolled over and grinned broadly at Chekov. "One moment, dallying with an unknown lady, the next, a complete blank. It has Raymond Chandler written all over it. So it was you who found me?"

"Yes. Yes. I found you."

"Thank you."

Chekov came one step into the room. "I just... was in the right place. Is he okay, Doctor McCoy?"

"I still can't find where the hell all that blood came from. No internal injuries. Just the bruises. I'll want to keep an eye on you for a while yet," he added cautiously, as if Sulu might be about to take the good news as a dismissal from sick bay.

The ensign's eyes had strayed to the diagnostic display. "Nothing else?" He looked at McCoy. "There was so much blood."

"No. He's fine. We gave him a transfusion immediately, but he probably would have survived without it. No signs of infection, no drugs, nothing beyond reaction to the bang on the head and loss of blood." The doctor frowned at Chekov. "How about you? You should have come back here after you'd cleaned up last night."

"I'm sorry, Doctor. I... I was so tired. I sat down for a moment and just fell asleep."

McCoy humphed. "You're looking a little peaky now."

"I didn't sleep very well. Gita was... a little restless and feverish, I think."

"Should I take a look at her?"

"Well, she didn't say she felt unwell, but..."

"I'll call her in once I've finished up with Mister Sulu here. Okay?"

"She will think I'm being stupid..."

"No, she won't. Gita has a blind spot for your stupidity," Sulu reassured him.

McCoy ignored the lieutenant. "I'll say I was giving you a merciless medical grilling and the only way you could escape was to offer me another victim in your place."

Chekov laughed uneasily. "Thank you. And Sulu is really okay?"

"Yes, Chekov. I promise you. He's fine. Now, run along." The doctor turned back to his patient with an indulgent smile as Chekov disappeared. "Ah, young love."

Sulu merely frowned. "He's so boring when he's... Anyway, why can't she make her own doctor's appointments?"

"Hm. That's one symptom I hadn't noted before you woke up. Unusual bad temper."

"My head aches, Doctor. It's enough to make anyone bad tempered."

**Two - Maintenance**

Chekov sat down with his breakfast. Sulu was well, so at least it was true that one bite wasn't dangerous. Unless Sulu had managed to survive until now without biting anyone. Or had bitten someone already and managed to avoid detection.

But McCoy would have carried out exhaustive tests, far more thorough than the tests Chekov had managed to conduct on himself, using the borrowed tricorder. Surely if Sulu was affected by this, the doctor would have found some signs.

What was undoubtedly untrue was Jarha's assertion that biting a human was a cure. Chekov was not cured. And now he'd bitten Gita.

Well, he would not bite anyone else. There would be no more victims. If Sulu and Gita were unharmed, that was more than he dared hope, but it need go no further. He would research this. He would find out why he felt such an irresistible urge to drink blood and meet the need in some other, acceptable way. Once he'd done that, worked out a solution to the problem, he could tell someone what had happened, someone like Mister Spock, who wouldn't over-react. That was logical, he reassured himself, and no one need be harmed.

The first strategy was to find an alternative to blood. So. He looked down at his breakfast tray. An omelette with spinach and a curry sauce, fresh apricots, chocolate mousse and a cereal bar that claimed to be iron enriched. He ate that first. The other items, although strongly recommended by the nutritional subroutine on the servitor, did not really appeal to him so early in the day.

And then, there was the blood sausage.

He stared at it unhappily. It was the obvious thing to try. It was probably a great delicacy somewhere.

He couldn't really visualise a set of circumstances where the blood sausage would be regarded as anything but a mistake. It had lumps of white fat in it the size of garden peas. He cut a slice off and shut his eyes. It smelt... revolting. Worse than revolting. He could feel his throat closing in response to it.

"Is that some Russian thing, Pavel?"

Engineering Ensign Naomi King was beaming at him across the formerly empty table. Her own tray bore wholesome, vegetarian choices. She slid it onto the table and sat down.

"Yes. It is a spiced sausage, a traditional recipe from Lipetsk. I am very fond of it." He realised he was trying to convince himself rather than the engineer.

"It looks repulsive. Hey, look what I found yesterday. The perfect accessory for the slav in my life. Look."

She held out her open hand, something metallic glistening in the palm. Chekov accepted it politely. It was a little silver trinket in the shape of a dagger, or maybe a sword, with an unusually broad hilt.

"I thought it looked transylvanian, so I immediately thought of you, since you're the nearest thing I know to a transylvanian." She laughed. "Then the girl in the shop told me it's a charm to ward off biters. I thought she meant mosquitos at first. Apparently not. So I thought, 'That's weird', because of course, it's cross shaped, really, isn't it, even though it's a knife? Apparently garlic and holy water are no good here. We had quite a little chat. On Demir, you have to cut out a vampire's heart to stop it being a vampire. I'd never thought about knives being cross-shaped before. Do you think vampires are afraid of crosses because they look like knives or the other way around?"

Chekov looked at the little novelty, and past it, to the skin of his hand which was stubbornly refusing to shrivel at its touch. He handed it back to Naomi. "Biters?" he asked levelly.

"That's what the Demirans call them apparently. I wonder where the word 'vampire' comes from? Do you know?"

"No, I have no idea," Chekov said, with a calm that surprised him. "Did the shop assistant tell you anything else about these biters?"

Naomi nodded as she took a sip from her coffee. "They only bite other Demirans, so apparently I shouldn't be frightened of them. She was very reassuring about that. Getting bitten once is okay. In fact, some people out in the sticks think a single bite, or alternatively sleeping with a vampire, cures all sorts of ailments, including infertility. I reckon that just means the vampire gets you pregnant, don't you?"

Chekov picked up one of the apricots and bit into it.

"But it's a dangerous kind of remedy, because the second bite is what makes the victim a vampire themselves. And there's no cure, of course. A vampire has to be killed, and you must cut its heart out or it will never rest. Isn't it curious how like transylvanian vampires these Demiran biters are? Do you think that means they must really exist?"

"No," Chekov said, taking a forkful of his omelette. He raised it to his lips and suddenly realised he had a headache that seemed to be trying to crumple his skull around his eyes. "Where did you discover all this? No one said anything to me about vampires on Demir."

"I don't suppose anyone would say anything about vampires to a casual visitor to Earth. Can you imagine? The tourist disk could recommend keeping garlic under your pillow in your hotel room. But it doesn't mean they don't exist, or at least that stories about them don't. Aren't you going to eat that?"

Chekov realised he'd been holding the forkful of cooling omelette in mid air, sitting with his eyes squeezed shut. He put it down. Iron tablets. That would be a far more acceptable method of dealing with a sudden need for the substance. He'd just have to work out a way of getting them without anyone noticing. He rubbed his eyes and the headache immediately retreated to a manageable level.

"Where's Gita this morning?" Naomi asked suddenly.

"She... I don't know."

"You haven't fallen out with her, have you?" The engineer's eyes sparkled.

"No," Chekov said, a little too quickly. "Why should I have..."

"You don't look very happy, that's all. Not that she'll ever make you happy. Here, to protect you from vampires." She slid the silver talisman across the table again and stood up. He looked in astonishment at her empty plate. She didn't seem to have stopped talking long enough to eat her breakfast.

The moment she was gone, he pushed his own plates back onto his tray, his hands shaking. The little knife lay teasing him. He picked it up, to deprive Naomi of any opportunity to tell someone what it was, and it went into the disposal chute with the remains of his breakfast. If vampires were traditional on Demir, then there would be folk history, or -- better -- modern psychiatric reports, or criminal records. He would go to the library. There, he could also look up a formulation for iron supplements that he could enter into the synthesisers.

***

The sound of his door chiming brought Leonard McCoy sharply awake. He sat upright and blinked at his suddenly illuminated cabin. "Come in!"

"I'm sorry, sir..." The red-shirted lieutenant didn't look in the least apologetic. "There's a problem in sickbay."

"Who..." Sulu had been discharged. There were no patients overnight. In fact the entire crew was in rude health. "Someone sick?"

"No. We're not sure what's happened, sir. It looks like someone broke in, but none of the alarms went off. Could you come and take a look?"

"Sure." McCoy was wide awake as soon as his feet hit the floor. Since there was no patient waiting on him, he grabbed his uniform. "I'll be there inside two minutes."

"Yes, sir."

The security man vanished, leaving McCoy to find his boots and follow on. The corridors were night dim and deserted. A shiver of unease ruffled the doctor's calm. Why would anyone break into sickbay... And if no alarms had gone off, how would anyone know they had?

As he emerged from the lift, McCoy could see there were two guards on duty at the entrance to his territory. The mystery of how the intruder had been detected was also solved. The control panel for the door had been opened. Whoever had gone in hadn't wanted his activities to show up on the security monitors. He -- or she -- had bypassed the controls so the door would register as closed and locked. Of course, the computer had picked up the interference during one of its automated sweeps of the circuitry. Until then a knowledgeable thief could have reckoned he had at least twenty minutes in sickbay without fear of being disturbed.

"Everything was shut down," the lieutenant said, almost accusingly. "Otherwise we'd have picked up whoever it was on a monitor somewhere."

McCoy was scanning his department for damage. There was no sign of any disturbance. "We had no patients," he apologised. "There was no reason..."

"In here, Doctor."

McCoy expected to be asked to check the pharmacy for missing items but the lieutenant was leading him towards the stasis unit. He froze in the doorway. This didn't look like burglary, more like a massacre.

"It could be vandalism but I think there was some method to it," the security man was saying. "Only five containers were opened, all different blood types. It looks as if they lost their temper when the last two were no good either."

"No good for what?" McCoy said in bewilderment. He could see what the man meant though. Three of the plastic containers were lying abandoned on a side table, leaking their rapidly gelling contents onto the stainless steel top. A fourth lay on the deck and the fifth had been hurled against the wall. Congealing blood spattered most of the small room. The violated stasis unit was humming to itself, its warning light blinking.

"Did they bypass the alarm on the stasis unit too?"

"No. That only signals on the nursing station and in your office. They probably realised that and didn't bother about it."

"Can I...?" McCoy gestured towards the evidence.

"Go ahead, Doctor McCoy. I've recorded everything."

The bags were colour coded by blood type. McCoy glanced across at the racks in which the bags were kept. It looked as though the intruder had simply worked down from the top, most accessible, bin, trying the bags one at a time and then moving on.

"This is ridiculous. What were they looking for? Everything's clearly labelled." McCoy shook his head. "It's as if they were sampling it for something."

"Is this synthetic blood or from donations?" the lieutenant wanted to know.

"Donated. We don't need to keep synthetic blood, at least only a small buffer stock in case we have a medical emergency while the synthesisers are down."

The lieutenant nodded. "Why d'you need donated blood at all?"

McCoy frowned. The answer to this question normally pleased him, but he wasn't in the mood for enjoying the mysteries of life. "You can't really synthesise blood. You get a substitute that's okay for most purposes, but it's not quite the same. No one's discovered why... yet."

"It obviously wasn't okay for this guy's purposes anyway," the guard agreed practically.

"How do you... Yes. Well, there you are then. Look at the computer records and see who's been ordering up synthetic blood."

"We can't."

"You mean he hadn't tried? That seems strange."

"No, he _had_ tried. We know when, and from which terminal."

"Then you'll have his password... or whichever password he used..."

"Uh-huh." The lieutenant seemed gratified somehow that it wasn't going to be that easy. "Whoever it was used a food replicator. No password required, just some patience transfering the recipe into the memory."

"You can order up blood from the food replicators?" McCoy wasn't sure why he found the idea so disturbing.

The security man merely shrugged. "Why not? It's all one basic process." He smiled at the doctor's expression. "I'll make sure that item gets deleted as soon as we've caught whoever it is. You know, if this hadn't happened, it would have made a good practical joke."

McCoy raised his eyebrows. "Can I get this cleared up?"

"I'll need to know if anything is actually missing, but I don't see any reason not to clean up. Do you have records of the owners -- I mean donors?"

"I'll look them out for you. But he's just taken the top one off each type..."

"It could be a diversionary tactic. Maybe he wanted one particular one and the rest were taken to confuse us. Oh, and I'll need samples from each for matching."

"Matching? Oh, you mean, if he's still wearing a blood spattered uniform?"

The guard shook his head. "He won't be, will he? Sonic showers and laundry recycling would have driven Sherlock Holmes into retirement. But we can hope whoever it was left a trace somewhere on their way to the shower."

"Yes. Whoever it was. Why the hell would someone do this?"

***

Kirk went and helped himself to a cup of coffee once his lunch was finished. "Vampires?" he said at last, bringing his drink back to the table and sitting down again. "Has it occurred to anyone that this might be someone's idea of a practical joke? Setting up a synthesiser to produce blood... It's the kind of thing cadets do all the time at the Academy."

"But destroying medical supplies isn't funny," McCoy objected, "and it isn't being played for laughs."

"You mean it didn't appear on the menu as..." Kirk hesitated over a suitably elliptical description.

Spock raised an eyebrow. "Most officers manage to maintain some control over their sense of humour once they have graduated."

"Most," McCoy agreed. "For some of them, it's never a problem in the first place."

Kirk nudged the pile of personnel reviews in front of him back into order. "You don't have any other, more persuasive explanation for what happened?"

"No," McCoy admitted. "Nor any outrageously unlikely ones. There was nothing missing. That was the obvious suggestion, theft and an attempt to cover it up. Although I can't think of any reason why anyone would want to steal blood. No medical reason."

"Did you verify all your pharmaceutical stocks?" Spock asked. "There are abundant reasons for thefts of controlled substances."

"Yes. Everything checks out. Nurse Chapel and I spent a very dull morning counting pills. Not just the controlled ones either. There's not so much as a sticking plaster unaccounted for." McCoy spoke with certainty and Kirk could accept his statement at face value. Christine Chapel was notoriously thorough in her management of medical supplies.

"How many people on board could override the security controls on the door?" Kirk asked, trying another tack.

Spock looked thoughtful for a moment. "Almost everyone, Captain."

"Why have the controls then?" McCoy demanded.

"And the ability to reprogram the food synthesisers is similarly widespread," Spock continued. He turned to McCoy. "Critical systems are of course protected by the use of passwords and retinal scans, but even that control can be bypassed."

The doctor frowned. "All this technology is bad enough when it's doing what it's supposed to do. Now you tell me any Tom, Dick or Harry can get in and tell it to do something else."

"What do you intend to do, Captain?" Spock asked, unruffled as ever.

Kirk shrugged. "Since you can't suggest anything more positive, I intend to wait and see what happens next."

***

As the door to the lift slid open, Uhura opened her eyes wide and looked at Sulu. Someone was screaming, or rather shrieking, at the top of her voice. It took a moment to interpret the sound as rage rather than pain or terror. Then a smiling crewman rounded the curve in the corridor and positively beamed at the two lieutenants, confirming that there wasn't a major attack happening out of sight round the next corner. "I'd get back in that lift and go somewhere else if I was you, sirs."

"Why? What the hell's happening?" Sulu asked, managing to sound suitably severe. Whatever was going on, even if it was only an ill-judged prank, didn't sound conducive to good discipline.

"A woman scorned, I think, sir." The man was fighting to suppress his own amusement, with notable lack of success.

Uhura dismissed the crewman's advice. Her cabin was down that corridor and she wanted to shuck her uniform and take a shower after a difficult shift. There was a muffled thud as something, or someone, collided with a bulkhead or the deck. No, she couldn't ignore this.

The crewman, eyes still twinkling, took the lift. Uhura strode round the corner, expecting to find a dozen or so junior officers to chew out. Instead, there were only three.

One was just picking herself up off the deck. The outline of someone else's hand was imprinted on her cheek. "You bloody bitch! It's none of your business anyway!"

"Ensign King?"

All three turned guiltily at the sound of the lieutenant's voice.

"Would you mind telling me what's going on here?"

Ensign King swallowed and said nothing. She was wearing only a short bathrobe in an unfeminine shade of blue. Beyond her, Ensign Anjali looked even less composed, despite being fully dressed in science blue tunic and black trousers. Her face was nearly as red as her caste mark.

"It's my fault," Chekov said from halfway between the two of them. Uhura noted that he was wearing only his uniform pants. She concentrated on his face.

"What is your fault, Ensign?" She piled all the ice and steel she could summon into her tone. She always felt like a fraud, an elder sister press-ganged to babysit, when forced to acknowledge her extra rank among friends in the crew.

"I forgot to lock my cabin door."

"Oh, and had you remembered, all would have been well?" Anjali snapped.

"No, I..." Chekov hesitated, his eyes on Uhura rather than either of the seething ensigns. "No. I apologise. I was... I was..."

He was obviously lost for the right phrase. Uhura scowled severely at him. "Then neither Ensign King nor Ensign Anjali is responsible for this... disturbance?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then I don't need to talk to them. Dismissed."

"But..."

"Ensign King?"

"My clothes are in Ensign Chekov's cabin," King admitted. Anjali smiled coldly.

"Collect them," Uhura ordered calmly. She waited until the engineer reappeared with her uniform in a tight bundle under her arm, then she nodded and the two women walked off in opposite directions. It was only then she realised that Sulu wasn't with her. She cursed him under her breath. "What's going on, Chekov?"

"Do we have to talk about it here?" he asked.

"No," she conceded, waving him back into his quarters. "If you'd kept the argument in here to start with, I wouldn't be involved now."

The bunk was rumpled. Chekov glanced around and shrugged apologetically. He suddenly looked very tired.

"Chekov?"

"Would you like a drink, Lieutenant?"

"Chekov, this isn't a social visit. I want to know what you did to spark a cat fight in the corridor."

"I didn't do anything," he said. "It was a misunderstanding, that's all."

She frowned. "You said it was your fault. If you were just being gallant, too bad. You chose to take the blame. Now tell me what happened."

The ensign chewed his lower lip. "Why don't you sit down?"

"Okay." She let him pull the chair out from the desk for her and sat down in it.

"Can I get myself a glass of water?"

"No, you can answer my question. Come on!"

"They are usually very good friends."

"So you must really have done something to wind them up."

Chekov shuffled his feet. "It's stupid..."

"That much I take for granted." Uhura expected him to look away, but he smiled instead. 

"Nyota..."

"Talk!"

"Gita walked in on us."

"She... And you're two-timing her?"

"Pardon?"

"How do you get yourself in these situations?" She shook her head and realised she was laughing. This was such a dumb, embarrassing affair. Sulu had had the right idea. She should have kept well away from it. Chekov looked slightly hurt but he was still holding her gaze. She knew she wanted to break the eye contact but at the same time, she didn't want to appear to back down. "Look, I came in here to chew you out, not to sympathise with you." She'd come off the tracks when she'd sat down, she decided.

As if reading her mind, the ensign took a seat on his bunk. His expression broke into a smile. "Then please continue."

Uhura looked at him for a moment and got to her feet. "I'm sorry. I'm doing this all wrong, although I'm surprised you'd try to take advantage of the fact. Get dressed and report to briefing room A in ten minutes."

Once the cabin door had closed behind her she stopped and counted to ten. Since she was still furious, she carried on to twenty. Then she headed for the lift where Sulu was still waiting.

"Where were you?" she asked, her anger only just cooling down enough to stay out of her voice.

Sulu held his hands up. "I always feel such a fraud when I have to read him the riot act."

She grimaced at the echo of her own reaction. "But you didn't know it was Chekov."

He smiled. "It was a safe bet. I recognised Naomi King's banshee impression, and she was obviously right outside his door. She's been stalking him for weeks, since before he took up with Anjali." The lift arrived and he followed her inside. "So what was it?"

"A romantic entanglement," she answered briskly.

"You mean he was carrying on with them both?" Sulu frowned doubtfully then smiled. "I suppose the temptation was too much for him. But what are you so mad about?"

"His attitude!" She realised she'd snapped at him. "I'm sorry. He was being... you know how cocky teenage boys get when they start trying to wheedle things out of grown women because they think what works with their fifteen year old girlfriend will pay off with someone old enough to be their mother..."

"I wouldn't have said you were..."

"Oh, don't you start. He was trying to be cute so I'd let him get away with...with whatever he'd done. Maybe I should just have left Anjali and King to rip him apart between them."

"Nyota," Sulu put out a hand to restrain the door from opening as they reached the deck that housed Briefing Room A. "I think he's a little shaken up over what happened to me on Demir, you know. They told me when the security team got there, there was as much of my blood on him as there was on me. He's been very quiet since. Go easy on him."

"I know that." She shook her head. "Don't make excuses for him. And what the hell was he doing in the red light district with you when he seems to have a problem scheduling everyone here on the Enterprise?"

"He wasn't. He was just having a drink with me. Then I... I clicked with someone and he was going to come back here. Gita was working." He frowned at her sceptical expression. "It's true. So what are you going to do about it?"

"I could say that he was indulging in conduct prejudicial etcetera, etcetera, and that he was insolent when I spoke to him about it..."

"But you're not going to?" Sulu sounded really worried now.

"Maybe I should. The example some people set him on this ship..."

"If you're saying it's only what Captain Kirk does..."

"I don't always like what the captain does. Don't smirk at me like that. At least he has the discretion to only have one thing going at a time."

"I think you're being unfair. It was King and Anjali who were scrapping, not Chekov. They're both adults. No one's saying he dragged either of them unwillingly into his cabin, are they?"

"No."

"He just misjudged the line between you being a friend, who might not like what he's doing, and a superior, who's obliged to take notice when it leads to fistfights in the corridor. Just remind him, nicely, that he's putting you in an awkward position. He'll be horrified when you put it that way."

Uhura sighed and stepped towards the door, "No, I've got to say more than that."

"But not much more?" The door opened to let her out. Sulu put his foot out to stop it closing and looked at her hopefully.

"That depends on him," she said firmly and turned away.

***

Uhura didn't know herself exactly what she was going to say, and she was glad she'd given herself a few minutes to think about it. Chekov wasn't the only man on board whose more juvenile masculine traits surfaced occasionally in womanising, getting drunk and looking for fights. But she recognised that behaviour as in part a fault of the system, crowding young men together on starships far from home. There was only so much the minority of women on board could do to civilise proceedings. But Chekov didn't normally strike her as in need of civilising. That wasn't really the problem here. Today's behaviour, although she'd characterised it dismissively as adolescent, gave her the creeps. He was straying over into areas where he wasn't welcome.

She sat down at the briefing room table and wondered why that was. He was a good person to work with. She was honestly quite fond of him. She didn't normally mind male colleagues who attempted, at an appropriate time and with more tact, to find out if she might be willing to be a lover as well as a friend.

After the way Chekov had behaved today, he had more than youth and rank counting against him.

She fetched herself water from the briefing room servitor and was sitting drinking it when Chekov arrived exactly ten minutes after she'd given the order.

"Ma'am." He stood to attention at the other side of the table. His uniform was immaculate and his expression impenetrable.

She put the water down and waited a moment before looking up and saying, "This is a small community, Chekov, and for that reason, it's important we treat one another with respect and consideration. What you did today showed a lack of respect for your fellow officers, your superiors and your friends."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You said you were responsible for the fracas I witnessed. I agree, but I'm going to assume that you'll deal with the problem now and that there won't be any repetition."

"No, ma'am. Thank you."

"I also want a written apology for the way you behaved to me. And maybe we should both be a little more mindful of our positions in future."

"Yes, ma'am." His adam's apple bobbed, and she felt a stab of discomfort herself at what she'd just said. She hadn't meant to suggest they could no longer be friends, only that it would require a little more circumspection. Tomorrow, she promised herself, when she was less tired and less cross, she'd make sure he understood that.

"Dismissed."

"Lieutenant Uhura..."

"Yes?"

"I am very sorry for the way I acted earlier. But... I need to talk to someone, and..."

She stood and tucked her chair back under the table. "I'm afraid I don't think I'm the best person for that at the moment." She disposed of her glass and left him.

***

Chekov woke and lay silent for a moment. He was alone again. Naomi, having made her conquest, had dressed and left him, happy but unaffectionate. He wasn't sure he'd ever felt quite so used...

He scowled at the irony of it. She had at least bedded him out of honest desire, no false pretences. She'd been triumphant when he'd gone back to her after the set to in the corridor, obviously believing she'd seen off Gita Anjali in some kind of contest Chekov had never even realised was happening.

So Naomi was no longer here, which was just as well. He was just beginning to be hungry again. It seemed to be working out at around twelve hours maximum between bites. That wasn't very long. Opportunities to be alone and intimate with people were scarce, and while he'd had no trouble with Leon Cley the previous day, an epidemic of fainting fits would have Doctor McCoy asking far too many questions. The Enterprise was indeed a small community... He sat up and looked at himself in the mirror on the bulkhead beside his desk. The face that looked back at him was so ordinary. He couldn't believe he'd tried to seduce Lieutenant Uhura. What must she think of him? He couldn't believe he'd actually bitten Sulu, and Leon Cley too. And Gita... His heart clenched. Gita was so beautiful, so wonderful. He could almost believe she'd have stood by him even through this, if he'd only had the courage to tell her, and the scent of her blood hadn't been so strong.

The memory brought the warm salt/sweet taste of Gita's blood into his mouth and he felt the saliva run. He sat down on the bunk and swallowed again and again.

She'd yelped at the hurt, but only for a moment, and by the time he'd finished, and they'd made love, the incident had been forgotten.

It had worked the same way with Naomi King.

Who was it to be this time? As the hunger built, the ensign's friends and colleagues were reduced to a collection of rotas, routines and habits. Someone who worked alone, he decided, male rather than female. There were better times, and other means, for catching a woman off guard...

***

Two hours later, Engineering Technician David Quinn went limp and quiet and Chekov paused for a moment to adjust his hold on the body, lifting the man's head to free his throat. As he bit, a tiny gasp of fright startled him. He let Quinn slump back to the deck and sprang to his feet.

The hatch into the service duct had been opened again, noiseless on its lubricated hinges. Her hands grasping the opening either side, Ensign King looked through into the workspace.

Chekov clenched his fists. At last, it had happened. He'd been seen. There was someone who could identify him. He wiped the tell tales of blood off his lips with the back of his hand. 'Kill her. Kill her. Kill her,' a voice insisted somewhere inside his head. 'Kill her. Kill her...'

"Stop it!" he snapped aloud.

"Stop what? Pavel?"

"Let me think!" He knew he wasn't going to kill her. There was no question of that. But the hammering chant made it so difficult to think of doing anything else. "Please go away, Naomi. Please. Go. Away."

She stayed exactly where she was, looking straight into his eyes. "I can't."

"You are in danger. Will you please go away."

"I saw you come out of the turbolift. I thought you'd come down here to see me." Incredibly, she lifted her foot up and rested it on the high rim of the hatch.

"Naomi!"

"You're a vampire, Pavel. Aren't you? When they said Sulu was covered in his own blood when they found him, I knew. I knew that was what happened to him."

The smell of Quinn's blood sang out to his senses, but her neck was closer. He shut his eyes rather than look at her pale, inviting flesh.

Her boots clicked onto the floor inside the hatch one after the other. She took hold of his hands. He opened his eyes again and found she was kneeling on the mesh flooring in front of him, looking up at him out of grey-green eyes.

"Did you bite me?"

"Yes. I'm sorry. Oh, God, I'm sorry."

"But I'm not... I don't think I am... I..."

"No, you're not. I swear you're not." He clenched her hands, squeezing a whispered protest out of her.

"Why not?"

"I have to bite you twice. The second bite..."

"Then bite me again." She tugged on his hands, pulling him closer to her. He could hear his own blood surging in his ears. He could hear her pulse hammering, 'Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.'

"I won't tell anyone. I promise. Pavel, I promise."

The chant changed without breaking the beat. 'Bite her, bite her, bite her.' 

"Naomi, no..."

Quinn muttered something and Chekov jerked his hands free. He pushed past King and tripped over the door sill, falling headlong and skidding a metre or so down the corridor beyond. He scrambled to his feet and ran.

***

Kirk hurried to the sickbay from the bridge in response to an urgent summons. Security Chief Tomson was hovering at the door of the treatment room, while Chapel stood aside to let Kirk see the patient.

"There's just the puncture wound to the neck, Captain. No other injuries," McCoy reported.

Kirk turned to Tomson. "You said he'd been attacked?"

"It looked that way, sir," Tomson said. "Doctor McCoy thinks it was a light phaser stun. We're following it up..."

"Doctor," Chapel interrupted, her voice not loud, or even openly worried, but demanding and getting attention. "The suture in the artery wall has failed. He's losing blood again."

"Get me a protoplaser." There was a minute of tense silence, then, "Damn. It's not holding. I need to clean up here. I can't see what I'm doing."

Equipment was handed back and forth without any apparent need for verbal communication, then McCoy stopped. "There's been some kind of anticoagulant administered. That could be interfering with the sealing process. Get me a needle and some surgical fibre." He let the protoplaser slip out of his hand, all his spare fingers obviously in use to stem the bleeding.

"Doctor?"

"You heard what I said. If it won't hold together I'll just have to damned well stitch it and let it heal in its own time."

Chapel was gone from the room.

"Did he say who attacked him, or what?" Kirk asked.

"No, sir," Tomson responded. "He was unconcious when we found him and he's heavily sedated now of course. He was in a service area. It looked like the attack took place there. There was no blood outside. The hatch wasn't secured. Ensign King from engineering noticed the indicator and went to check it, luckily. We think we found him fairly quickly."

"No sign of any intruders in the ship?"

"No, sir. No vessels anywhere near us, no evidence of transporter use or ingress by other means, no unrecognised life signs aboard."

"Weapon?" Kirk prompted.

McCoy looked up from his patient as Chapel returned. "It's a bite, I think. And I haven't really looked at it from a forensic point of view, but I think it's humanoid."

"Dental records..." Tomson started, but McCoy shook his head at her, eyes back on his work.

"You might eliminate a few crewmembers, but the skin of the neck is too elastic and mobile to take a good impression. If your vampire had dropped an apple core..."

"Vampire, Doctor?" Kirk queried disapprovingly.

McCoy severed the fibre and put his needle down. "I don't know what else you'd call it."

Kirk beckoned Tomson away from the patient into McCoy's office. "You said a phaser stun..."

"Yes, but it wouldn't neccessarily be a phaser. A phaser isn't the only way to deliver the necessary disruption to the central nervous system. It could be done with something else quite easily."

"Yes, but you should carry out a weapons audit all the same. And I want everyone accounted for, now and throughout the last hour. All crew not currently on duty to report their present location and then go to the rec room. Everyone who is on duty to pair up with another person then report their location and who they're with. Have your people use tricorders to check for traces of blood. Don't forget they'll need to check each other. And tell them I want to know about anyone whose behaviour seems unusual."

"Right away, Captain." Tomson turned away, and a moment later, he heard her calmly making the announcement, her voice echoing itself from multiple speakers.

"Captain."

Kirk turned to see what McCoy had to say.

"Quinn's coming around."

***

Uhura pulled her earpiece away and listened to the announcement. A member of the crew assaulted... She shivered. It brought back memories of the trip to the Babel Conference. The _Enterprise_ was too much like a snowbound country mansion sometimes. She glanced around the library. The shift had just ended. She'd been aware of people leaving in the last few minutes, but she needed to finish these log summaries and send them off tonight, or Fleet would start complaining. Tomson hadn't called a yellow alert, just said report your position and pair up.

And report who you'd paired with, so that when they found your body...

She laughed at herself. A quick touch to the intercom put her through to the bridge. "Jeff, Uhura here. I'm in the library, all on my own-some. I have some work to finish. Can you ask Tomson to send me a bodyguard?"

"Will do, Lieutenant."

Her assistant communications officer didn't waste time. Tomson's voice cut through within seconds. "Library... deck four..." Uhura could imagine her seated in front of a schematic of the ship, matching everyone up, checking who was missing. "Chekov just reported in on that level. I'll send him in to you."

"Damn," Uhura said aloud, although not until she'd cut the link. The ensign's apology had been waiting for her that morning. It was sincere, brief, and disarmingly clumsy. She still didn't know what to say to him.

She heard the door slide open and glanced up to check it wasn't admitting anyone else. Chekov avoided her gaze. He took a seat at a workstation near the door.

"I won't be long."

"Okay."

"Do you know who was attacked?" she asked, as a batch of files were compressed and coded and her fingers hovered, unoccupied, over the keyboard.

"No."

The computer demanded her attention with an impatient bleep and she returned to her work. As she concentrated on identifying departmental reports that needed to be included in the transmission, her train of thought was broken by the sound of Chekov getting up and moving around. She cursed herself. It was just nerves. On the bridge, she could keep her mind on her work in the middle of a phaser barrage. "Pavel, why don't you find a report to polish, or something."

"Yes, ma'am."

She sighed, saved her work, and turned the screen off. She had time to spare. "Pavel." She turned her chair. He'd gone over to the big screen at the far end of the library and looked as if he'd been about to call something up from the index. "If you don't want me to tell you off, you shouldn't behave like an idiot. I can't take it back."

He shook his head. "I know."

"You said you wanted to talk. I'm sorry I walked out on you. Can we talk now?"

"It's too late now," he said. Although he could have made it an accusation, he didn't. Whatever the problem was, she felt, it was simply a fact that the time for talking about it had passed.

"Are you in some kind of trouble?" she asked, moving towards him.

"Can you..." Chekov shook his head furiously and waved her back to her computer. "I'm in a hurry."

Uhura hesitated. "Okay then. I'll finish up as quickly as I can."

He barely nodded an acknowledgement. She walked back to her chair and reached out to unlock her files.

Then she gasped, surprised, as a hand touched her shoulder and spun her chair round.

"Chekov, what the hell are you..."

His hands locked around her upper arms, pinning her before she could react. "This isn't going to hurt, I promise you."

"Get your hands off me, Mister! Now!"

He leaned down and bit into her neck so quickly, she was shocked into momentary silence.

"Pavel," she gulped, when the panic receded a little. She was too terrified to know if it was hurting or not. His grip on her arms was tight. She could feel his fingers bruising her flesh. She couldn't concentrate enough to fight. Her mind seemed clouded, not just with fear but with something more like a drug, something she couldn't fight with will power.

She hovered on the edge of fainting until he finally released her. When she began to topple out of the chair, he caught her shoulders and supported her until she collected herself enough to shake him off.

"Call Security," he said.

**Three - Betrayal**

Kirk was at the head of the detail that burst into the library less than a minute later. Tomson, a fraction of a second behind him, was glaring furiously at Kirk for not letting her do her job, again.

The captain halted, obviously not expecting the relative calm and order of the scene that greeted him. Uhura was sitting at one of the workstations, her dark skin milky with shock. Chekov was sitting on the floor across the room. He stood up and held out his hands, showing they were empty.

"Stay where you are," Kirk said, resisting the temptation to be taken in by Chekov's apparent surrender. "Lieutenant, why did you call for Security?"

"Ensign Chekov attacked me, sir."

"Attacked you? How?"

"He bit my neck." Uhura looked across the room at Chekov. "When he stopped, I couldn't find the bite, but I'm sure he bit me."

The veneer of calm in her voice was very thin over anger and confusion. Kirk came across and helped her up from the chair, aware of tremors shaking her body. Still supporting her, he turned to look across the room at his ensign. "Did you bite Lieutenant Quinn too?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Tomson..." All the less senior security people were men. "Can you take Lieutenant Uhura to sick bay."

The blond Security Chief pulled a set of cuffs from her belt and handed them to one of her officers before she obeyed. Kirk grimaced. He didn't appreciate being pushed like that.

"Why did you attack Quinn, and then Lieutenant Uhura?" he asked Chekov.

"Because... I needed blood."

"Needed it for what?"

Chekov seemed to have difficulty getting out an answer. He'd been looking directly at Kirk up until that point. Now he looked away. "To drink, sir. I seem to... need regular supplies of fresh blood. I have tried using stored and synthesised blood, but it doen't work. I... I didn't mean to harm Mister Quinn. If I had not been disturbed, he would not have lost much blood."

"If you hadn't been disturbed?" Kirk repeated.

"There... there appears to be an anticoagulant in my saliva when I bite someone. When I have taken sufficient, there is an antidote, which accelerates healing. Quinn was only bleeding because I didn't... I didn't feed. I was disturbed."

Kirk swallowed. He could hear his security officers shifting their weight unhappily behind him.

"David Quinn could have bled to death. Are you saying that's someone else's fault for disturbing you?" Kirk demanded. "And because you were disturbed, you simply found someone else? How many people have you bitten in total? How long has this been going on?"

Chekov dropped his gaze, casting his whole face into shadow. The gesture of contrition, or at least embarrassment, cooled the captain's anger through a few degrees.

"Chekov, did someone bite you? Is that how this happened?"

A slow nod.

"Why the hell didn't you just tell someone and ask for help?"

"I didn't ask for help because there is no help anyone can give."

"What makes you think that?"

Chekov shifted his shoulders. There was no doubt the ensign was in some kind of turmoil, but Kirk couldn't interpret if it was guilt or fear that was principly bothering him. When he spoke, he sounded bitter and defeated. "I told you. I've tried substitutes. Nothing works."

"I was thinking of a cure rather than maintenance, Chekov," Kirk argued. "This has to be some kind of disease, caused by an organism of some sort..."

"Not that I can detect."

"Since when were you a doctor?" Kirk snapped. "Just because you can't deal with this yourself, that doesn't mean it's impossible. All you had to do was ask for help..."

"There is no help, no cure. The Derim have not found one in hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. There is nothing you can do. I looked for an alternative and there is none. No alternative but to go on biting people."

At last, Kirk figured the reason for Chekov's unnatural, almost callous calm. The ensign was cornered, with nothing left to fight for.

"Hold on, Chekov. We'll find that alternative. In the meantime we can set up transfusions. We can find a way of using volunteers."

"The blood must be fresh from an artery, and near to the heart. The blood in sick bay..." Chekov's face twisted with involuntary disgust. "And spilt blood... once it is outside the body... Transfusions won't work. And I don't think there will be volunteers. Why would anyone risk being like this? And I don't want to die in sick bay, screaming to be allowed to feed from someone." The ensign took a deep breath. "I'm sorry."

Kirk stared at the Russian. "And because you're convinced no one's going to volunteer, you've decided to attack at random, for as long as you could get away with it?" He was furious and terrified in equal parts. What if Chekov was right, and there was nothing they could do? How long did they have? What really was the risk to a volunteer, if the amount of contact, the possibility of infection was minimised? Kirk shook his head. He didn't want to weigh this up, make it safe. He wanted to stop it. "And once you heard Lieutenant Tomson's orders to get in pairs, you realised you couldn't stay hidden any longer, so you just bit the nearest person, whoever that happened to be?"

"I'm sorry," Chekov repeated doggedly. "But you see, there is no alternative. When I need to feed... I stop worrying about anything else."

"And at times like this, when you can think straight? You could have asked for help..."

"Don't you understand?" Chekov asked. "There isn't any help. You will have to lock me up and watch me die. You don't know what the hunger is like. Would you want to die like that, begging and screaming to be allowed to bite someone? That is what will happen. I tried to fight it and I know I can't."

Kirk took a step nearer to Chekov, but halted when he heard a worried hiss from the nearest of his guards. He wasn't afraid of Chekov, but he was afraid of a guard misinterpreting an innocent move and firing. "I hope your phaser is on stun, Mister Williams," he said calmly, not taking his eyes off the ensign.

"It is, sir."

"Good. I'm sure Mister Chekov won't provoke you to use it. Now, I want to know, Ensign, if you think it's that bad, that hopeless, how the hell could you risk infecting..."

"It takes two bites to infect someone. I haven't bitten anyone twice."

Kirk shook his head. It was something, though, that Chekov was still rationalising himself a claim to some morality.

"How much do you know about this... this disease, or whatever it is? Start at the beginning. Tell me what happened."

"It won't help. I've tried everything..."

"That was an order, Mister Chekov."

The ensign swallowed. "Yes, Captain. Of course. I was bitten, by a Demiran... by a Demiran. She...she bit me because they believe biting a human cures them. They also believe the first bite does not infect the victim, but if you are bitten again, you become as they are."

"This woman overpowered you? How? Demirans are no more powerful than humans."

Chekov smiled faintly. "There were three of them. One held my arms behind my back, and one held a gun to my head."

Kirk fought the urge to apologise. "Does what happened to Sulu have anything to do with this?"

For a moment, uncertainty flickered in Chekov's expression. "There is a... a trade. Certain people make it possible for there to be access to human visitors, for a price."

"Chekov, ships are stopping off at Demir all the time, crews taking leave there. Have you thought about that?"

The ensign looked up at the implied accusation. "No, they don't... they're very careful not to let anyone know, not to frighten people away. No, no one's in any danger. It doesn't harm you, being bitten once. It would not be in their interests to infect anyone."

"How could people be bitten and not know?"

Chekov shook his head. "Captain, I'm sorry. I only know what happened to me."

Kirk's eyes narrowed at the evasion. But it sounded as though the 'trade' was probably tied up with prostitution in some way. It might not be difficult to do what Chekov claimed. "So someone bit you. But she believed that one bite wouldn't infect you. Was she wrong? Or were you bitten twice? Why? Why set out to infect you if she could have bitten you once with no ill effects?"

Chekov scowled impatiently. "Because I knew what was happening then. They wanted to make sure I'd keep quiet. They forced her to bite me again."

"But..."

"They thought I'd bite someone, another human, and be cured that way, don't you see? Then I would have no reason to tell anyone what had happened, and many reasons not to. But it didn't work. It might cure a Demiran, but it didn't cure me."

Chekov's calm was evaporating. Kirk cut him off. "Come back to sick bay with me. However this all happened, we'll help you now."

"No." Chekov didn't move in response to the offer. "I really don't want to do this any more."

"I'm glad to hear it," Kirk said unacceptingly. "I just don't think you're in any state to make the right decisions to avoid hurting people. You have to let us help you. You've just bitten Uhura, and it's two days since we left Demir, so we've probably got that long until you need to feed again. Let's make the best use of that time..."

"It is not just Lieutenant Uhura..."

"God dammit, Chekov. Who else?"

Chekov licked his lips, as if recalling the flavour of his victim's blood. "Leon Cley."

Kirk thought back, remembered a report of a crewman fainting the previous day, being kept under observation by McCoy for a while and then put on the sick list for a nominal twenty four hours. The doctor's examinations, even if only for something as trivial as a headache or sleeplessness, were never less than thorough. He turned to the guards. "Have someone pick up Cley and take him to sickbay. Now, how did you knock him out?"

"I combined anaesthetic spray from several first aid kits," Chekov admitted immediately. "One that is broken down rapidly by the body and doesn't leave traces. That was easy. But if I did it again, people would notice. You and Doctor McCoy would become suspicious. Or perhaps there would be an accident and someone would suffer because the supplies were missing." He paused for a moment. "But I'm not sure I cared about that. After I finished, the wound closed almost immediately. I just walked away. And..."

"And McCoy gave him a clean bill of health, so you decided to repeat it with Quinn?"

"No." Chekov shook his head wearily. "I didn't 'decide'. I couldn't think of anything else. I persuaded myself it was safe. She told me, one bite is not dangerous. I wasn't sure I believed her, but... but it seemed she was correct. She lied about other things, but Cley and... I didn't think I took too much blood. It didn't seem much. I don't want to harm anyone."

"Chekov," Kirk said, becoming impatient. "You have harmed two people. All you had to do was ask for help..."

"No. I have told you already. Nothing helps. I have tried everything I could think of, blood from stasis, synthesised blood, meat... I don't know why is meat any different to blood, but I can't take any of it. I even tried raw meat... You'll find out if you make me go with you to sickbay. I imagine... I imagine eventually I would do anything to persuade you to let me feed. I would rather die now, here, than strapped down in sickbay begging you..."

Kirk swallowed the reassurances he'd been about to give. It wasn't a pretty scenario Chekov was constructing, but it was an entirely possible one.

The captain could feel a gaping chasm of distrust between the two of them. Arguably, he had good reason to be wary of any member of his crew who'd taken to snacking from his colleagues' jugulars, but he couldn't really work out why Chekov was equally mistrustful in turn. "Listen, Chekov, let me make a suggestion. Once you feed, it must still be about twenty four hours before you need to feed again, right?" 

The ensign frowned. He raised his eyes and looked at Kirk with renewed suspicion. "Do you mean you will order someone..."

"For the moment you just need some time for us to solve this problem. You've bitten two people, and I suspect Sulu was bitten too, while he was on the planet. Neither he nor Cley are showing any ill effects. In twenty four hours, if those two and Lieutenant Uhura are still in good health, and if you have done your utmost to cooperate with Doctor McCoy in finding a cure, I will guarantee you a volunteer. If we still need a second volunteer after that, I'll guarantee that too."

Chekov was looking at Kirk as if he was mad. "No one will volunteer."

"But you told me yourself it was safe, Chekov. Were you lying?"

The ensign blinked as if momentarily disorientated. "How can I be sure? I don't think so."

"Cley isn't just an undetected... vampire, like you? You could have warned him, threatened him even, frightened him into keeping quiet."

"No. No, I did not do that." There was a hesitation that worried Kirk, but then the Russian shook his head. "I can't give you any assurance. I don't know."

"Wouldn't Cley know by now?"

"I don't know. I would think so, but I knew from the beginning. How can I tell?"

"Then I accept you can't be certain, but I believe you're telling me everything you know. You have nothing to fear. Nothing to lose. And we've twenty four hours to sort this out. Come here."

"Sir..." Chekov stumbled over his feet as he began to obey. "You can't mean this." He stopped again. "I wasn't going to bite anyone else. Every time, I tell myself I'll never do it again."

"If we're fortunate, Doctor McCoy will get a handle on this real fast, and you never will. Come here," Kirk repeated. He deliberately took Chekov's arm and led him towards the door, not a prisoner but a patient, coming in good faith. The security guards, as they passed, were tense as bowstrings.

***

McCoy slipped the cassette Chapel had just given him into his computer and glanced at the data before making his report on Chekov's condition to the captain.

"He's.... well, he's okay, Jim. His condition reads as excellent, apart from a mild inflamation of the salivary glands and the lining of his mouth. That's odd, in that I can't find an infection of any kind. It's as if he's reacting to something that isn't there. I can't find an infection of any kind anywhere. There's a minute and falling population of antibodies I don't recognise, as if he was exposed to an infection but fought it off successfully. No drugs, no sign of physical or any other sort of interference. I think I can just make out where he was bitten, now I know what I'm looking for, but that's it. He says everything tastes bad, particularly anything containing animal derived protein, and he's lost his appetite generally."

"What about Ensign Cley?"

"He's fine. Similar antibodies to Chekov, and more of them, but again, at decreasing levels. Same with Sulu. Uhura has a little local inflamation around the point Chekov bit her as well. All of which is exactly what I'd expect."

"Why?" Kirk asked flatly. He didn't like medical lectures. He just wanted to know there was a cure.

"I'm guessing it's a disease caused by a virus, or viroid form. My next guess is that it's not very infectious, and doesn't try to be. The host bites someone, ingests their DNA along with their blood, and the virus adapts itself, using the DNA as a template, to look just like native tissue to the victim. Then when the host bites the victim a second time, the virus arrives back with a first class ticket and gets welcomed on board. Meanwhile, back in the host's body, you have mild symptoms of infection because his own immune system is getting nervous about the modified virus. Simple. Although the virus, even after it's modified, is still a good enough match for Chekov's DNA that I can't spot it in there." Despite that difficulty, McCoy looked mildly pleased with what he was able to announce so quickly.

"So does that help you to find a cure?"

The doctor's enthusiasm vanished. "Well, no. The techniques I normally use to model an infecting agent from an antibody aren't being very successful. But at least the antibodies give us a way of testing to see if anyone else has been attacked..."

"Why do you need..."

"Well, if Chekov acquired this... problem on Demir, he wasn't the only member of your crew visiting what they coyly call the evening district. Someone else could well have been bitten. Sulu, almost certainly, was bitten by someone who was disturbed, let him bleed for a while, then went back to finish off."

"Could that have been Chekov?" Kirk asked, hoping to get a negative answer, for Chekov's sake.

"I don't know. I'll be able to tell you when I establish precise markers on the antibodies I've isolated from Ensign Cley. But for all we know, we could have more than one vampire on board. We need to check out that possibility, and set up quarantine if anyone else is affected."

"Can't Chekov give you any more clues?"

McCoy sighed. "I don't really expect him to."

"He did seem a little vague..." Kirk agreed.

"Evasive."

"What?"

"Vague maybe, but he struck me as evasive. I've never known him to be quite so reticent." McCoy glanced out into his sickbay. Chekov was lying on one of the diagnostic beds, mildly sedated to minimise the discomfort of repeated tests. Christine Chapel was working at a station near the ensign. "I know what he told you about needing to bite a victim twice checks out. I'm just moving on to the other piece of information he was given, that biting a human is the cure. Seems like he was sold a pup on that one, but it might give us some clues."

"I'll go have a word with him," Kirk said.

McCoy gave him an odd look, but shrugged. "Go ahead."

***

Chapel looked up and smiled at her captain. It appeared that working a few feet from a vampire who'd just bitten one of her best friends was no great deal to the nurse, which didn't surprise Kirk. He _was_ surprised when he heard a throat clearing behind him and looked round to find a security ensign standing, like a beacon, just inside the door.

"What are you doing, Hamiduddin?"

"Lieutenant Tomson's orders, sir," the man replied crisply.

Kirk resisted the urge to ask what McCoy's reaction had been to having a hundred kilos of enforcement billeted on him. He was just glad he'd missed the pyrotechnics. He crossed over to the bed and breathed in sharply.

Chekov was strapped down, across the hips and chest. His hands, in addition, were strapped at the wrists. He was more alert than Kirk had realised, his eyes guarded, tense and defiant.

"Has Chekov attacked someone else?" Kirk demanded.

"Not while I've been watching him, Captain." Hamiduddin returned.

"Then why is he pinned down like this?"

The guard shrugged. "That was how I found the prisoner when I arrived, sir. I haven't been any nearer to him than I am now." Hamiduddin clearly intended to maintain that distance.

Kirk began to unstrap Chekov's hands. The Russian frowned at him, but seemed relieved that he could move his arms again, even more so when Kirk freed his shoulders too.

"We keep prisoners in the brig, Mister Hamiduddin, and patients in sick bay. Do you think you can remember that?"

"Whatever the captain says, sir," Hamiduddin assented diplomatically. Kirk shook his head and smiled at Chekov. "Better?" he asked lightly.

"Thank you, sir."

Christine Chapel turned and started to say something, but then clearly decided not to.

Kirk sat down next to the bed and began updating Chekov on what was being done. "Doctor McCoy is already working on the antibodies he's isolated from people who have been bitten, and Mister Spock's trying to contact the authorities on Demir, to see what help they can give us."

"I have... I tried to find out everything I could myself, before we left Demir. I uploaded all available public health and criminal information. I told Mister Spock that a few minutes ago..."

"Yes. He's looking through it. But Chekov, why were you trying to deal with this yourself?" Kirk shook his head exasperatedly. "We're facing this together. If you don't understand that..."

"You don't understand. You can't help. I found reports of medical research on Demir that have to be about this disease. They have tried everything already. Antibodies from someone I've bitten won't work."

Kirk felt a rush of annoyance at this insistent pessimism. "Why not?"

"I don't know why not, but the Demirans have tried it."

"You sound as if you don't want it to work."

"Why... Why should I not want to be cured?"

"You tell me," Kirk said.

"I didn't ask for help because you can't help. I do want to be cured."

"He's right, Captain. Antibodies from his victims won't work because they're effectively antibodies to Chekov himself, and on the second bite, there are no antibodies. And I reckon he doesn't want to be cured because it doesn't suit the disease. This isn't really Chekov you're talking to." Kirk turned to look up at McCoy, just as the physician started refastening the straps on the bed.

"What makes you say that, Doctor?"

"His behaviour! Dammit, Captain, he's attacked your crew..."

"He's part of my crew."

McCoy reached out to lock the webbing across Chekov's chest, but Kirk was in his way.

"Did you ask Lieutenant Tomson to provide a security guard here in sickbay?"

"Yes, of course I did. Do you expect me to take chances with my staff, with my patients..."

Kirk waved Hamiduddin out and Chapel calmly followed without needing to be told. "Normally, Doctor, if I want a guard posted in here I have to arrange for someone in Security to break a leg first. What has got you so..."

"It's my medical opinion..."

"You said this disease was not highly infectious. You agreed that it takes two bites."

"I don't have proof absolute of that yet. I see no reason to take unnecessary risks. If you're going to question my professional judgement, Captain..."

McCoy stopped, like a man with one foot over an abyss.

"Go on," Kirk said, unhelpfully.

"I want to help him," McCoy said, as if Chekov wasn't there. "You know that."

"So what's the problem?" Kirk's manner had gentled, for the moment.

"I was remembering Nancy. And Darnell, and Barnhardt. And you. I only wanted to help Nancy... but I blinded myself to the truth."

"That wasn't Nancy."

"No. And if you judge by his behaviour, Captain, this isn't Chekov. For the moment, for whatever reason, he's prepared to risk the health, the lives maybe, of his friends and colleagues, to put his own needs ahead of anything else. I don't want to make the same mistake again."

Kirk looked at Chekov, as if weighing up McCoy's fears. "This member of my crew is your patient, Doctor. I have known you to treat murderers and terrorists in this sickbay, and refuse to have them restrained. Mister Chekov will give you his cooperation, at all times. Right, Ensign?"

"Yes, Captain."

"In return, Doctor, you will give him the benefit of the doubt. We'll review the situation in eighteen hours." Kirk looked at both of them. "I don't like taking chances either. Okay?"

McCoy nodded unhappily, then turned and left, without a word to Chekov.

Kirk looked at his ensign. He sat down by the bed and took the time to sketch out to Chekov the circumstances in which crewmen Darnell and Barnhardt had died, and their captain had nearly joined them. The ensign listened in silence.

"But I am... I am not somebody, or something else. I am me."

"I know."

***

Six hours later Sulu leaned against the wall outside Nurse Chapel's office, waiting his turn. Having recently been released from sickbay, he wasn't in any hurry to return. He'd been called in as soon as a reliable test to isolate the tell tale antibodies had been developed, along with everyone else who had been on shore leave on Demir. He'd made excuses to delay responding. Uhura had been on duty with him up on the bridge, tight lipped and uncommunicative. Once or twice, he'd turned to look at her and caught her brushing tears off her face. He really wasn't in a hurry to know exactly who'd bitten him.

A medical orderly waved him impatiently to the head of the queue just as an engineer came out of the office, giving a cheerful thumbs up. Sulu took his place, sat down, rolled up his sleeve and watched the blood filling the plastic container.

"Just wait there for a couple of minutes, until we get the results," Chapel said reassuringly. "This is a slow business, particularly when we're trying to confirm that someone _hasn't_ been infected. How are you feeling anyway?"

"You're assuming I have been bitten, aren't you?" Sulu said gloomily.

"It would be stupid not to check." Chapel's concentration was on the accelerator that would increase the concentration of antibodies in the sample until they were detectable.

"Are you going to test everyone on the ship, or just people who went down to Demir?"

Chapel added a drop of something to the container and slid it into an analyser. "Both, eventually. It's a routine precaution. It might be possible to pass it in other ways." She didn't add that McCoy thought Chekov might be lying. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant. You've been bitten." She waited for a moment to gauge his reaction. "You do understand that we think that's not dangerous? It doesn't mean you're infected."

"Oh, yes. I understand. And don't apologise. It'll make a great story to tell my grandchildren." He stopped, obviously struck by something in her expression. "Is that all? You can't tell any more than that?"

"I see... a tall dark stranger and fourteen children in here. Is that what you wanted to know?"

"No, thanks." He smiled briefly.

"Doctor McCoy will get to you shortly. Can you tell whoever's next I'll be with them in just a minute?"

She waited until the door to the treatment room was closed, then touched the intercomm.

"Doctor McCoy?"

"Mm? What is it, Chris?"

"I've just seen Lieutenant Sulu. He has the antibodies."

"Well, I'm not surprised. Is there something else?"

"They're identical to the ones we found in Ensign Cley's blood."

There was a moment of silence. "Did you tell him?"

"No. After all, it's not one hundred per cent certain..."

"That Chekov infected him? No. Just around ninety nine point all the nines. Okay. Thanks. I'll see him now."

Chapel sorted out her instruments, without admitting to herself that what she really wanted was time to get used to what was happening. A moment later she released the door, the smile back on her face. "Next?"

***

Kirk listened in silence to McCoy's report.

"Sulu's fine," the doctor finished. "I mean physically fine. Just showing the same evidence of an old infection as Leon Cley, and now Uhura. Emotionally... well, I suspect he doesn't know what to think about it."

"How certain are you that Chekov bit him? And can you be sure when he was bitten?"

McCoy hesitated. "When is difficult. I'd say earlier than Cley, and not more than three or four days ago. It could have been before we even arrived at Demir, just. It depends on how long the infection was around, how much the body reacted to it before it defeated it. As for who... He was definitely bitten twice, by different people, at very much the same time. One of those attackers certainly wasn't Chekov. The other can't realistically have been anyone else."

"Ensign Chekov told me he was infected because he was bitten twice. Does Sulu show any sign..."

"He doesn't have the inflammation I've observed in Chekov. According to his own reports, he's not suffering any other symptoms. He doesn't report having lost his appetite. Oh, yes. I told you Chekov said he was off his food, didn't I? I checked up on that. He's hardly eaten since returning to the ship, and he hasn't eaten anything meat based. He's ordered it, but apparently he hasn't eaten it."

"A vegetarian vampire?" Kirk puzzled over it. "Why? What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know. But I still can't say for sure that Sulu, or any of the others aren't infected."

"Others?" Kirk's eyes narrowed. "What others?"

"Gieves and Hawkes were both bitten at some point. They had leave on Demir, spent it in the evening district with local women and don't remember anything suspicious."

"You haven't identified any new cases since we left Demir..."

"We're only just getting on to the rest of the crew. The test is slow. As for whether people are infected, symptoms can vary in their severity, and I suppose any of them could be lying. Chekov certainly is, if only by omission."

Kirk shook his head. "It's very unlike him. Is it possible this disease could be having a direct effect on his behaviour, making him regard us as an enemy to be misled and outwitted?"

"I wish you wouldn't ask me questions like that," McCoy objected. "If I've learned anything in the last two years, it's that the answer's always yes. It's possible. There's no evidence though." McCoy took a deep breath. "I'd like to keep Sulu here in sick bay for the moment. From what I understand of how the disease works, being bitten by two different hosts won't put him at risk of infection, but... "

"Okay. I agree, it makes sense."

"And Chekov?" McCoy prompted. "He didn't tell us he'd bitten Sulu..."

Kirk frowned. "It looks as though he bit Sulu soon after he was infected, Cley twenty four hours after that, and Uhura a day later. We have more than twelve hours until we have to start worrying. If we can't do anything for him..."

"So he stays here for now? Okay," McCoy said heavily. "I suppose you're right."

"But I still think he has to answer some questions," Kirk conceded. "Let's hear what he has to say for himself."

***

The captain halted at the foot of Chekov's bed. The ensign sat up, wide eyed, while McCoy moved round to examine the readouts. "Has anyone adjusted these?"

The nurse sitting at the end of the ward looked up from his screen. "No, sir."

"Looks like the base levels have been lowered by a couple of points. You haven't interfered with it, have you?" the doctor demanded of Chekov.

The ensign looked surprised, twisting to see what the he was so concerned about. "No, sir."

"He wouldn't know how, would he?" Kirk suggested.

"No, I suppose not," McCoy agreed, without conviction. He picked up a hand held scanner and started to double check the readings. Kirk left him to get on with it.

"Doctor McCoy has just been looking at the results of a blood test on Lieutenant Sulu."

"I bit him, on the planet," Chekov said quickly.

Kirk stared at him for a moment. "You could have told us that earlier," he said, with deceptive mildness. "Couldn't you?"

"I could have..."

"So why didn't you?"

"I never thought I was going to harm anyone."

Kirk shook his head. "I really don't see how you managed to come to that conclusion. So when did you bite him?"

"On Demir that night, shortly after midnight."

"Did you know that he was also bitten by someone else, probably while he was on Demir?" The captain watched Chekov think through what that might mean. "While you were telling yourself that biting someone once was safe, did it never occur to you that you might not be the only source of infection?"

"On the ship, I assumed on the ship..."

"You did think about it, at some point?"

"Yes, sir."

"But not when you bit Sulu."

"No, sir, but..."

"You'd only been infected an hour or so previously, at most. Were you already that desperate for blood? And if you weren't desperate, why couldn't you explain to him what had happened and come back to the ship for help?"

"Is he infected? He's not, is he?"

"I can't be completely certain that any of the people you've bitten aren't infected yet. They may just be taking longer to incubate whatever it is for some reason," McCoy admitted, coming back into the conversation and showing he'd been listening all along. Then he relented a little. "He's not showing any signs of exposure or infection beyond what Ensign Cley and Lieutenant Uhura are exhibiting. If he has avoided infection, though, it's in spite of your actions not because of them. You should have asked for help."

"There isn't any help you can give. They told me that much. This disease, or whatever it is, they've had it on Demir for hundreds of years. They've never found a cure, not until humans started visiting the planet. Then someone discovered that biting humans cured it. That's why she bit me." Chekov hesitated, then went on in a rush. "But they still killed her. They forced her to bite me again, to infect me, then they killed her. They were her family and all they could do to help her was kill her. She was still alive and they cut her heart out..." Chekov gagged on the memory.

Kirk paused a moment to control his own reaction. "I don't understand," he said patiently. "Why did they have to kill her? Doesn't the cure work?"

"I don't know," Chekov insisted. "I only know it didn't work for me. I'm still a... a vampire and I hate it, I hate it."

The captain ignored the angry tears that the ensign did his best to wipe away with his hands. "You knew they killed her, and yet you risked biting Sulu? What the hell did you think you were doing?"

McCoy pulled a handful of paper towels out of a dispenser and handed them to Chekov, who wiped his face and forced himself to look up at his captain. "They said if I ever told anyone what had happened, no one would ever trust me. They said biting a human, biting Sulu, was the only chance I had. Until humans came along, all they could do was kill them, the biters. They said even if you didn't kill me, you wouldn't let me feed and I'd go mad. If biters... vampires don't get blood when they need it, they turn violent, they lose control. I was frightened that would happen to me, that I'd do something terrible..."

"You did do something terrible. You bit Lieutenant Sulu, and then Ensign Cley." There was ice in McCoy's tone. "So how would asking for help have been worse? If you'd been in sick bay, everyone else would have been safe, and you could have been sedated while we had the opportunity to look for a cure. We could have dealt with the whole problem by now. All you've done is delayed things and put other people at risk." 

Chekov nodded. "I know, but..."

"But what?" Kirk asked.

"I was afraid, if people thought he might be a vampire too..."

"That someone would kill Sulu?" Kirk scowled. "I think we're a little more rational than that, Chekov."

"The Demirans are not more rational than that. And you don't have a cure either."

***

Four hours later, Kirk glanced around the briefing room. McCoy had just belatedly taken his seat, looking exhausted. The captain knew from experience there was little point suggesting the doctor should rest. He turned his attention to Spock instead. "Were the Demiran authorities able to tell you anything about this?"

Frustratingly, Spock had started to pursue his research on the planet just as the hospitals and libraries of the capital city had been closing at the end of the day. Although Kirk felt that the emergency justified someone working a little overtime, even burning some midnight oil, the Demirans had not agreed.

"I spoke to the Surgeon General. He accused me of hysterical over-reaction to local folklore." Spock paused disapprovingly. "Despite some evidence of folk belief in the existence of something similar to what you would call vampires, there are no formally recorded cases of any form of vampirism on Demir, no unexplained deaths or assaults in the city in the last five years and he assured me that he would happily allow his young daughter to roam the streets at any time of the night or day."

"Do you believe him?" Kirk asked. The captain plainly didn't.

"There is the attack on Lieutenant Sulu, which contradicts his assertions. When I requested criminal and public health data, I was told the library facilities in the city are off-line for upgrading. We are fortunate that Mister Chekov had pre-empted their attempt at non-co-operation. They are obviously unaware of his actions."

"Hold on, Spock. Are you accusing them of a deliberate cover up? They could just be hoping the problem will go away. It's not impossible that this is something brought in from outside."

"But the problem will not 'go away', Captain, and the Demiran authorities know that. The UFP has placed a second grade quarantine on the planet."

Kirk frowned. That meant no transfers of personnel onto or off the planet and stringent, expensive, checks on all cargo both ways. "Is the Demiran government appealing that?"

"Apparently not," Spock said. "Which means the quarantine will remain in effect for thirty days and then be subject to review by the Federation Council. If they were to appeal, and lose the appeal, it is entirely possible that a much longer quarantine, even an indefinite one, could be imposed. I suspect they are gambling that we will not be able to prove that the source of infection was on Demir, and that no further cases will come to light. If they appeal, they will have to provide evidence, and offer it for independent scrutiny. It seems probable that they have something to hide. The economic consequences, even of the thirty day quarantine, will be severe."

McCoy looked up, seeming to take an interest for the first time. "I can't believe, in a situation like this, they wouldn't want to ask for all the help they could get."

Kirk shrugged. He'd come across all too many governments whose attempts to deal with awkward situations would have shamed a kindergarten class in problem solving. "It looks like Chekov's not the only one who believes we just can't help. What did his search uncover?"

"Nothing," Spock reported succinctly.

"Nothing?" McCoy exploded. "I thought you said..."

Spock held up a hand for silence. "Nothing in the port area beyond a level of assault and aggravated theft that is entirely normal for a society of this type at its current stage of development. No attacks on visiting humans, or indeed other species, but the number of non-human individuals visiting is so small as to be statistically invalid as a sample. Of course I have no means of verifying the statistics relating to attacks on natives by natives."

"Hold on a minute, Spock," Kirk objected. "No attacks on visiting humans? Not even pickpocketing and drunken brawls? Nothing?"

"It is strange," Spock agreed. "Were the Surgeon General's daughter human, it seems he would be correct in his assessment of her safety. Until the attack on Lieutenant Sulu, which we now know to have been carried out by Ensign Chekov, the port city gave every appearance of being one of the safest places in the galaxy for a human to visit."

"So what exactly are we supposed to deduce from that? That the statistics were lying all along? Then why refuse to release them to us?"

Spock, Kirk sensed, was relishing the conundrum. "Perhaps the very safety of the city is significant. A case of the dog that didn't bark," the Vulcan suggested.

"Of course it is," McCoy said suddenly. "Think about it, Jim. You have a disease, with no known cure. Then you discover, by accident probably, that when sufferers bite humans, they recover, while the humans are none the worse for being bitten. You probably don't know why, or how, but why would you care? You'd encourage all the human visitors you could get, by setting up an attractive, inexpensive, superficially safe port facility. Particularly a port facility, where it's not going to be difficult to get your intended victim alone, with his guard down..."

"It's ideal, isn't it?" Kirk said. "But why was Chekov..."

"They'd have to control it very carefully, to prevent anyone discovering what was happening. Maybe whoever bit Chekov jumped the gun... Or couldn't pay the price." McCoy stopped, abruptly looking rather sick. "That's probably what it is, Jim. Access to the cure would be limited, in order to keep the secret. Demir is very much a supply and demand society. I bet she just couldn't pay whatever local mafia is in control of the situation down there."

"And then they couldn't kill Chekov, or have him disappear, so they tried to frighten him into silence."

"Not just frighten him, give him a guilt complex, and put him in fear of doing Sulu more harm by revealing that he'd been bitten as well." McCoy shrugged. "I still think Chekov could have had a little more faith in us, but I'm beginning to see his point of view."

Medical log: Stardate 5234.27

I have now completed a full diagnostic investigation on Ensign Chekov. There is still no direct evidence of any infectious agent. The antibodies observed in other bite victims are now completely absent from his system, and yet the patient's general physical condition has begun to show a steady deterioration. It is now 10 hours since he last ingested fresh blood. From his account of events since he contracted this condition, we anticipate that he will not need to feed again for thirteen to fourteen hours. He reports that on previous occasions his need to feed has become so strong as to obliterate any concern for the safety of his colleagues.

He is able to ingest foods from some nutritional classes without ill effect. However, anything containing animal proteins, even in modified forms, produces disabling nausea. This effect holds whether or not the patient knows what he is being given. Synthesised and stored blood apparently produce the same response. I cannot currently suggest any mechanism for this effect, but for the moment, I hypothesise that the purpose of the behaviour is to encourage a host to seek live victims who can be infected in turn.

We do not yet know what the consequences will be of prolonging the twenty four hour interval between feeds. The patient describes himself as being 'out of control' and has expressed concern both directly for himself and for the harm he might do to others. In particular, there is a risk if he were to bite anyone for a second time, since this appears to be the manner in which infection occurs. From a medical viewpoint, the deadline is the point at which his condition begins to deteriorate beyond what is reversible. We will only establish that timescale by denying him the opportunity to feed and observing the consequences. It is not impossible that depriving the patient of access to fresh blood would in itself compromise the survival of the infecting agent and effect a cure. Conversely, it might kill the patient...

"Are you suggesting we starve him into submission?"

McCoy looked up, startled, at the captain standing in the doorway of his office. "I'm just thinking aloud. No, the next step is to test out various alternative feeding strategies, before the 24 hours is up. I really think his unwillingness to take substitutes is a strategy on the part of the disease to ensure it reaches new hosts, but there's a possibility it may just be a protective behaviour pattern that the disease has developed to prevent its Demiran hosts taking contaminated blood or something like that. Either way, I've done every test I can, short of insisting he actually swallows the stuff. There's no evidence it will harm him."

"And no evidence it won't," Kirk said bluntly.

"Synthesised blood, or blood that's been in stasis, is indistinguishable from fresh blood," McCoy said patiently. "There's no medical, or chemical argument for not using it. I've carried out tests for allergic response, toxicity, immune reaction, everything. It's not as if I'm injecting it into him. He's going to digest it. That takes care of most contaminants and mismatches as a matter of course. If I was trying to put synthetic or stored blood on the market as a food product, it would get a clean bill of health. I've explained that to him but he still refuses to try it."

"So the next step is telling him to force down a little and wait twelve hours..."

"Not really. That's a practical approach if you're stuck on a strange planet with nothing to eat but the local mushrooms and no laboratory facilities. I already know he's not going to have any problems with it. This is a behavioural problem."

"If he's being unco-operative..."

"There's no 'if' about it, Captain. Chekov has been unnecessarily secretive, manipulative... For whatever reason, he wants blood. He's not prepared to consider the alternatives..."

"Dammit, Bones, you're not being fair to him. He's tried them and they weren't any use..."

McCoy suddenly stood up. "Look, Captain, I can see what's happening here, even if you can't. He's a vampire, and he wants fresh blood, obtained by biting people. By biting his friends and colleagues if necessary. Medically speaking, there's nothing he can get from fresh blood that isn't available in other ways. Sooner or later, he has to accept a substitute. It might as well be now. If we leave it until he's desperate, it'll be more difficult to distinguish any side effects of the substitute from the hunger itself. We might as well give him enough, so that he doesn't enter a feeding frenzy, or whatever you want to call it, and possibly attack somone else twelve hours from now. I'm not prepared to take that risk and my medical opinion is that it's unnecessary. The substitutes are safe. Do I make myself clear?"

The was a steely determination to McCoy's manner that took Kirk by surprise. "Okay, let's get it over with."

***

Kirk led the way into the ward. "The doctor's spoken to you about using substitutes for fresh blood?"

"Yes," Chekov admitted. "But I tried it and it didn't work."

"Why not?" Kirk asked. He waited for an answer and Chekov's gaze drifted upwards to rest on his neck, a cold, hungry gaze. The captain glanced uneasily at the clock. Chekov should have plenty more time before he became hungry.

"It's dead..."

"Blood that's been kept in stasis is fresh. It's only seconds old." 

"It's disgusting," Chekov said quietly but with uncharacteristic firmness. "Revolting."

"Okay, it's revolting. Grilled liver's revolting but my mother still made me eat it. Get some donated blood, Doctor."

Chekov frowned, then sat up. "Very well. If you don't believe me..."

"I'm not saying it's going to be pleasant, Chekov," Kirk countered, "but Doctor McCoy needs to find out why you can't use it, and to do that, he needs some observations."

The ensign nodded after a moment. "Yes. I understand. I'll try."

"Good." Kirk rewarded him with a smile.

Chekov didn't answer and Kirk nodded to McCoy to go ahead. He took the opportunity to raise the bed, so that Chekov could sit comfortably. The ensign was breathing fast and shallow, giving the impression that he was really frightened by what was about to happen. It was, Kirk conceded to himself, a fairly nauseating prospect. He laid a reassuring hand on Chekov's arm. "Okay?"

Chekov looked back, straight at the captain's neck.

McCoy reappeared, holding an invalid cup with an inch of bright, oxygenated blood in it. He looked less than sure of himself, as if Kirk's capitulation to his viewpoint had allowed his own doubts to resurface. "Captain..."

Kirk took the cup from him and offered it to Chekov. "It's been in stasis since within seconds of being donated. Isn't that right, Doctor?"

"Yes. It's indistinguishable from what's flowing around inside of any of us. At least..." But still, McCoy kept his distance. Maybe, Kirk reflected, it was just the idea of force-feeding blood to someone.

"You have reservations?" he double-checked with the doctor. "Whose blood is it?"

"Ensign St Juppe. I realised it would be safer to use blood from someone who's several light years away. But blood isn't very digestible."

"Not a problem here, I imagine," Kirk responded sharply. "Is it, Chekov?"

"I cannot drink that." Chekov's eyes flicked to the offending cup and then up to meet Kirk's eyes. "I..."

"It's an order, Ensign. How much, Bones? So you can be sure there's no adverse reaction?"

The doctor shook his head. "I don't know, because he can't tell me what he's worrying about. I already know it won't cause any problems I'm familiar with. There's no reason I know of why he can't have all of that, or more."

Kirk looked down at the cup in his hand. Before another twelve hours was up, Chekov was almost certainly going to have to feed again. They couldn't let him bite anyone before they'd tried all the alternatives.

"You don't think it can do him any harm?" he demanded of McCoy again.

The doctor shook his head unhappily. "It's identical to fresh blood, by every test I know."

Kirk took hold of Chekov's shoulder with his spare hand. "Get him some water, to wash his mouth out afterwards."

McCoy turned away to a water dispenser.

"Are you going to drink this?" Kirk held the cup where Chekov could take it for himself. "Or would you prefer me to feed it to you?"

"That will not be necessary," Chekov said bitterly. He took the cup and raised the plastic spout to his mouth.

Kirk watched him take a sip, his own stomach clenching in sympathetic revolt. Then Chekov spat the liquid back out over the bed and began to retch.

McCoy pushed the captain out of the way. Chekov's shoulders were heaving as he doubled over.

"Very convincing," Kirk said. "Doctor, is this a medical reaction?"

McCoy's eyes were raking along the line of indicators above the bed. "We're not talking toxic shock, nor an allergic response..."

Kirk nodded curtly. "Okay, it's the sort of stunt a child who won't eat his vegetables pulls."

"I can't..." Chekov tried to protest.

"Maybe I'd throw up if you asked me to swallow fresh blood, but we know that isn't a problem for you, don't we?" Kirk bent down and picked the discarded cup off the floor. He thumped it down on a nearby dispensing unit. "Is there anything here that indicates it's harming him, Doctor? Or is this just hysterics?"

"I can't," Chekov repeated. "Do you imagine I want to..."

"There's no medical problem," McCoy reconfirmed quietly.

"Can I have some water, please?"

"No. Not until you start to co-operate with us." The captain gestured to McCoy to fetch another cup. "Is there any reason we shouldn't administer a sedative?"

McCoy hesitated as he placed the top on the cup. "I don't know. I just don't know enough about what's wrong."

Kirk grunted disapprovingly. "Right then. This is your last chance, Ensign. Either you do this yourself, or I will order Security in here to hold you still while we force feed you. Which is it to be?"

Chekov accepted the cup, closed his eyes and emptied it. Kirk could recognise the struggle not to throw up, even empathise with it, but he didn't show any of that. The ensign slumped back against the raised surface of the bed and took a deep breath.

"Water?" Kirk asked, holding his hand out for McCoy to pass the beaker.

"Yes, please." Chekov reached out for the beaker, but his fingers shook and it began to slip out of his grasp.

Kirk caught it for him. "Here, let me help you."

He lifted the beaker to Chekov's mouth, distracted by the tell tales of bright blood on the ensign's lips.

Chekov grabbed the back of Kirk's head and one shoulder of his tunic and ripped open the skin of his neck, just under his left ear, with blunt, ill-adapted teeth.

Kirk had the presence of mind not to scream, or struggle. Instead, he attacked, digging his thumbs into Chekov's own neck with controlled force. He felt the ensign's grip relax in startled reaction, then Chekov pulled away completely. Kirk let him go.

His head swimming, he held on to the edge of the bed with one hand and probed at his neck with the other. It took him a moment to realise someone was shouting at him, and someone else was retching, coughing his guts up by the sound of it.

"Captain! Let me look at that!

Kirk took a deep breath and raised his chin, letting McCoy probe at the stinging injury. He could feel blood trickling down inside the collar of his uniform.

"Doctor..." Chapel's voice was insistent.

"There." A cold spray hit Kirk's neck, numbing pain. "That'll counter the anticoagulant. But he may have got enough of a sample of your blood to be able to infect you. Be warned." 

"Doctor!" Now the nurse's voice was sharp, almost angry.

McCoy span away from Kirk to deal with the nurse. "I told you to strap him down..."

"I'm worried he'll choke."

Chekov was folded double, his shoulders jerking with every dry heave. McCoy grabbed his shoulders and tried to force him to straighten up but he jack-knifed, convulsing, before he stilled. A moment later he looked up at McCoy, eyes crazed with broken blood vessels, and the retching started again.

"Muscle relaxant. Stomach pump," McCoy ordered. "He's going to rupture something at this rate. Chekov, try to relax. It's not a reflex: you can fight it."

There was no sign the ensign had even heard. He heaved again and spat blood and bile into McCoy's face. The doctor kept talking, imploring calm, a hand held out until someone put a hypo in it.

Kirk watched them work; straightening the ensign, stripping off his sickbay coveralls, so that every tremor in his ribs and abdomen was visible as his muscles still struggled to expel the poison in his stomach. By the time they forced the twin tubes down his throat and started to flush through litres of clear liquid, they'd given Chekov so much relaxant he required help with his breathing and electrical stimulation to keep his heart beating.

Bruises were starting to colour all over his torso. McCoy vanished for a moment, and came back, drying his face with a paper towel that he let fall to the floor.

He looked up at the diagnostics, taking in the regular, artificial rhythm. "We almost killed him."

Kirk was still shaking. He ignored it. "But you didn't. You picked up the pieces. Now you go on."

McCoy nodded. "Right. We go on. I was just handed the results of the tests on the crew who didn't go down to Demir. Gita Anjali and Naomi King have been bitten. Do you want the good news too?"

Kirk stared at him. "Chekov bit them?"

"We should have checked Anjali first. What could be easier than nuzzling up to your girlfriend? I just didn't think he'd... do that. But there is good news. The path lab is mapping the structure of the antibodies from successive victims. They think that the disguise can't fool more than two or three immune systems simultaneously. So you, Uhura and King are currently at risk, and maybe Leon Cley, but Anjali and Sulu are in the clear. And no one else has been bitten, either by Chekov or anyone else. The rest of your crew is okay."

"That explains why he attacked me, too. The gap between feeds wasn't twenty four hours, more like twelve."

"Does that make you feel better?" McCoy asked.

Kirk shrugged. "I want to believe he only attacks out of real necessity, that he's fighting it as long as he can... But he lied to us, again." Kirk turned back to Chekov. Chapel was just tidying up after removing the tubes from the ensign's throat. "I've given the antidote to the relaxant, Doctor," she reported. "His own breathing is strengthening, and his heart rhythm has re-established.

McCoy checked the strap across Chekov's chest, pulled up and fastened the hip strap and clipped the restraints into place round his wrists. He looked at Kirk. "He may be hungry when he wakes up."

"I promised him a volunteer if it came to this."

"If he co-operated," McCoy snapped. "But when it comes down to it, you'll find him one anyway." The doctor shook his head. "Maybe it's a good thing he's already bitten you. Now you can't volunteer yourself."

**Four - Crisis**

Ensign Gita Anjali was sitting in McCoy's office. Her customary serenity seemed perfectly intact. Kirk wondered for a moment if McCoy hadn't yet broken the news to her.

"The captain would like to ask you some questions," McCoy said. "It's important that we understand as much as we can about what's happening."

"Yes, Doctor."

Kirk took a seat too. "How is it you didn't realise until now..."

Anjali smiled, a flawless imitation of her normal smile, that usually settled like a blessing on anyone who saw it. "It doesn't hurt that much. I thought he was... he was just being a little rough. And it must have healed over almost immediately. I never saw a mark." Kirk wasn't sure if she was blushing or not as she continued. "We are lovers, Captain. He didn't _attack_ me. At least, that was not how I experienced it. Can I see him?"

McCoy frowned. "We're not sure how this disease is transmitted, but a second exposure seems to cause infection."

"Oh, I see," she said. "I thought perhaps he was afraid he'd harm me by taking too much blood if he bit me again. I understand now."

"Understand what?" Kirk asked.

Anjali definitely blushed. "He did something... that I didn't understand. But I do now."

"Started up a relationship with someone else?" McCoy suggested.

She nodded. "Is he okay? Can you do anything to help him?"

"The agent that causes the disease is very good at hiding itself, disguised as Pavel's DNA, or the DNA of someone he's recently bitten. That's why a second bite is dangerous. Your own immune system wouldn't realise it was under attack. But now he's bitten three other people since he attacked you, the disease has probably changed enough that it would be recognised as a threat again and you'd fight it off."

Anjali nodded. "He's bitten three other people?"

"Yes." McCoy hesitated. "I assume Ensign King was the one you were puzzled about. The others were Ensign Cley and Lieutenant Uhura."

She calmly weighed the facts. "He feeds every twelve hours then. Has he fed recently? I assume that the blood must be fresh, and not synthesised?"

"Twelve hours seems to be the schedule," McCoy said. "And he's hungry now. I'd hoped to have identified a cure before we reached this point."

Anjali stood. "I know I'm a botanist, but... I'd like to help with your research if I can. And, if you think it's safe, I would like to volunteer..."

"No," McCoy said flatly. "I _think_ you're safe. I'm not sure, and it's an unnecessary risk. If it comes to volunteers, you're the last one I'd take at this point. But thank you. And I'll gladly accept any offers of extra brain power. Have a word with Chris Chapel for now."

"May I see him?"

"He's sedated. I'll tell him you asked."

The botanist nodded. "Thank you, Doctor."

"Smart woman. She put all the clues together very quickly," Kirk said approvingly once she'd gone.

"Brave too," McCoy agreed. "She must be very fond of him."

***

Sulu passed Uhura in the corridor, then turned round and came back. "We should stop avoiding each other like this."

She gave a brittle laugh. "I haven't been avoiding you. I've been howling hysterically in my cabin. I just feel so..."

"Frightened?"

The lieutenant frowned. "No. I was frightened when he did it, and immediately afterwards, before Doctor McCoy told me I wasn't infected, but mostly I'm just... angry. I feel _used_."

Sulu glanced around. "Let's talk, somewhere quiet..."

"Sorry. That makes me nervous."

"Okay, somewhere brilliantly lit, crowded and full of security men with large muscles. Also, I promise not to sit and watch the pulse in your neck."

Uhura shivered. "The rec room will do."

Sulu diverted to bring two large mugs of coffee to their table then pulled out a chair for himself. "I just saw Gita Anjali. You heard..."

"Yes. That's why I'm so furious with him, Sulu. He was just working through us, one at time. He took advantage of Gita and he used Naomi King like a prostitute. He slept with her, bit her and dumped her. And half an hour before that, he was trying to chat me up. It's so... creepy."

Sulu sipped his coffee. "Yes. I guess... It is pretty unpleasant, when you set it out like that."

"How should I set it out? And what about you? He knocked you out and let you bleed all over the place."

"I was counting that in his favour. I mean, would you rather he was an ultra efficient, by the book vampire right from the word go? I thought a certain clumsiness..."

"Sulu, be realistic. I can see he was in trouble, maybe he was even frightened - terrified. Do you really want to work with someone, live on the same corridor as someone, whose reaction to a situation like that is to attack you and take whatever you have in order to help himself? Really? If he gets through this, are you going to trust him to stay and help you in a hull breach, or when a landing party hits trouble?"

The helmsman shook his head. "Well..."

"Because I'm going to find it difficult. I hope they find a way to cure him, but... But that's it. I'd never be able to turn my back on him."

"I guess I wasn't conscious, I wasn't aware of what was happening, but I think you're being awfully hard on him," Sulu said quietly. "Gita isn't that angry."

"Gita Anjali is a saint. I don't aspire to her standards."

"She's helping out in the path lab..."

"I said I hope they find a cure." Uhura brushed at her eyes with one hand. "I just hope I never have to see Pavel Chekov again."

***

Naomi King stood, smiling, while Christine Chapel deprived her of a few more cc's of blood. "I've always wanted to be pale and interesting," she said cheerfully.

Chapel reflected that, dressed as the ensign was in black, head to toe, she'd have needed several layers of foundation to project anything but corpselike pallor. "This should be the last sample I need," she replied brightly, "and I can give you iron supplements if you do turn out to be anaemic."

"Can I see Pavel?"

The nurse blinked. "Do you _want_ to see him?"

"Of course. I'm not angry with him. It's not his fault." King shook her head. "You think it is, don't you?"

"Illness is never a question of fault." Chapel considered for a moment. "Although some people do seem to enjoy catching more than their fair share. Anyway, I didn't mean that. I'm not trying to stop him having visitors. It's just that there haven't been any."

"Oh." King pouted. "Poor man."

"I don't see why you shouldn't go in and see him, if you want. You are theoretically at risk of infection, and will be for the next twelve to twenty four hours, but... he's restrained, so..."

"Restrained? How medieval."

"Yes, leg irons on the dripping stone wall in the rat infested dungeon. For heaven's sake, grow up, Naomi. This isn't a gothic romance."

"He probably needs cheering up," Naomi said firmly. "I'd like to see him."

"Hold on a moment. I'm not sure he's awake, and I'd better... No, I don't see what harm it can do. Go ahead."

Chekov was awake. He shut his eyes when Chapel entered the ward, but he was definitely awake. She didn't make an issue of it, just double checked the straps and waved Naomi into the room. "You have a visitor. Five minutes, Ensign King. No more." 

***

"Pavel?"

The ensign turned his head and his eyes met Ensign's King's. She was out of uniform. The black dress she was wearing made her skin look powder white and her eyes were sunk into smouldering grey bruises.

His heart jumped in his chest. What if it only took one bite after all...

She came over to him, a little nervously. "I've just been talking to David Quinn. He doesn't remember anything about it, anything at all. And Christine thinks we're all okay, not even measurably anaemic."

"Thank God," Chekov breathed.

"Why have they got you strapped down?"

"They think I might... forget myself and bite someone," he said.

"Don't they know you can get out if you want to?"

"What do you mean?" He flexed against the straps to demonstrate his powerlessness.

King just smiled. She reached out and stroked his neck. "Very convincing. Are you hungry?"

He was, but only in an abstract, dreamy way, despite having failed to complete his attack on Kirk. His stomach was sore from the pumping. Swallowing hurt. He felt lethargic and nauseous from the muscle relaxants and then the antidote. All of that, McCoy could have treated, but Chekov hadn't asked. Feeling so ill gave him something else to concentrate on. He let his eyes close. "I'm sorry if I frightened you, Naomi. I'm sorry I bit you."

The pressure across his chest suddenly vanished. He opened his eyes again and she was leaning over him, freeing his wrists. She adjusted the control to raise the head of the bed, lifting Chekov so that he was half sitting. "You didn't frighten me. I wasn't saying bite me rather than kill me. I _want_ you to bite me."

"What?"

"Pavel, you bit me before. Now do it again. I know what I'm asking. If you bite me again, I'll be one too. Like you. I want that. Don't be afraid. You won't be alone any longer." Staring into his eyes, she touched the control and raised the bed until he was sitting, still trapped by the webbing across his hips. "Please. It won't be so bad when there are two of us..."

He gazed at her in plain confusion. "Go away."

"You don't mean that." She slid a fragment of transparent plastic casing from her palm to her fingers and held it like a knife blade. "Here."

It slashed across one white finger tip and blood sprung out in perfect, ruby spheres, coalescing and tumbling over to drip around the contour of her finger and fall. She slid her finger into her open mouth, licked the blood off, then closed her lips tightly round the injured digit and drew it out again, clean.

Chekov flung his arms around her and pulled her into his embrace, getting a mouthful of curls before his lips fastened on her neck just at the sweet hollow where it sprung from her shoulder.

He stopped himself. "Naomi..."

"Do it. Pavel, do it. I want you to. You want to. You need to. Now. Now."

He pushed her away, just a few inches. Just enough that he couldn't feel her pulse beating against his skin.

"You have to do something for me first," he forced himself to say. His heart was hammering in his chest and his back of his mouth seemed to ache.

"Do I? What is it? To prove I'm worthy, you mean? Like a quest?"

"Yes, exactly. First, strap me down again. And lower the bed. Otherwise, you'll make them suspicious. Then you have to bring me a knife. Do you understand? A scalpel. And you must do it soon. If I don't bite you soon, it won't work. It must be in the next few hours. Do you understand me?"

"But... Why?"

Chekov fixed her with a steady gaze. "Don't ask. I can't tell you. It's a quest. Go now." He traced a line under her left ear with the tip of one finger as she fumbled to put the chest strap back in place and then gently lowered him again until the bed was horizontal. Finally, she replaced the cuffs on his wrists.

"Go now," he repeated softly.

"Ensign King! What do you think you're doing? I said you could talk to him..." McCoy grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her away from the bed. His eyes checked out the restraints, then he turned to her. "Are you okay? Did he touch you?"

"No, Doctor. How could he? He can hardly move. I... I just wanted to tell him I wasn't angry with him. Nurse Chapel said he was miserable. I..."

"Okay. But next time you want to visit, you shouldn't come in here alone."

"Yes, Doctor," she said readily. "I'm sorry."

McCoy waved her out and went back to his patient. He took a moment to smooth the anger off his face. "How are you feeling?"

"Not too bad."

"Much hungrier?"

"No, I... I still feel a little nauseous. I'm not really hungry at all now."

McCoy frowned. "Could you eat some food, do you think? Maybe some fruit juice, or..."

Chekov shook his head. "No."

A quick check of the diagnostics revealed another slight fall in metabolic levels. McCoy tried to think of something to tempt the ensign into a 'yes'. Sauteed virgin, maybe.

"How about some company..."

"If Naomi comes back. At least she doesn't seem terrified of me."

"She's still at risk if you bite her, as I explained to you just now..."

"I'm not going to bite her, am I? I'm not going to bite anyone. I'm going to die."

"No, you're..."

"You're not going to let anyone volunteer to be bitten."

"Chekov..."

"You didn't let me bite the captain."

"Chekov, listen to yourself! You attacked him. A volunteer is someone who gives informed consent before the event, and who gets every safeguard, every preparation we can contrive."

"There won't be any volunteers. Everyone is too scared. Being scared is the rational response..."

"Chekov..."

"Can I come in?"

McCoy turned at the sound of Sulu's voice. The helmsman was standing in the doorway, looking, undeniably, nervous. 

"Should I come back later..."

"No, you should come right in and sit down now." McCoy was up, grabbing Sulu's arm and bringing him close to the bed. "Talk to him. I have to chase up some test results."

Left on their own, neither man said anything for almost a minute. Then Sulu sat down. "When you bit Gita, you knew I was okay, and every person you bit after that, you had more reason to believe that it wasn't going to be dangerous. I think I just want you to tell me that when you bit me, you... you didn't know what you were doing. That you were confused and didn't know what was happening or..."

"As far as I can remember, I was thinking quite clearly."

Sulu stared at him. "It didn't have to be true. I just wanted you to say it."

Chekov tried to pull himself up so he could look Sulu in the eye. He gave up, cursing the straps.

"I know you do stupid things when you're drunk sometimes, or tired, or... pushed to the limit. Is that what happened?"

"I was frightened. And confused. I couldn't work out why the Demirans were doing things that didn't make sense."

"Just tell me what happened. That's all I want to know."

"The bartender, from the drinking house we were in all evening, he cut your throat."

"What?" Sulu demanded.

"He opened the artery on the left side of your neck, with a knife. Think about it."

"Your saliva contains something that accelerates healing..."

"But only after I've had enough blood, as much as I want. Enough to satisfy my hunger. At the beginning, it thins the blood and dilates the artery wall to make it easier to get enough, quickly. I couldn't waste any. I had to swallow it all, so that I'd reach the point where I'd had enough as soon as possible. I had to..."

"Stop it." Sulu leaned forward, resting his forehead on the edge of Chekov's pillow. "I'm sorry."

"Well, so am I. When I came back to the ship, I thought I was cured. You were okay. I checked myself out with a medical tricorder from the bio labs, and that said there was no infection. The Demirans told me I'd be cured if I bit you. I felt fine. Then I woke up with Gita and bit her."

"Oh, Chekov..."

"If I'd told anyone then, they would tell her. I didn't want that... I didn't want her to be frightened. I didn't... Please, go away. Just go away."

***

Naomi King was sitting in the rec room, a sparse salad in front of her. "It was terrifying -- I mean, looking back, it was terrifying. At the time, there was a sort of dreamy rightness about it. I *wanted* him to bite me. As long as I was looking into his eyes, I wasn't frightened at all."

Around her, an audience of junior officers were intent on every word.

"Like a bird with a snake," someone said.

"Exactly!" King confirmed. "That's _exactly_ what it was like. Then Doctor McCoy just appeared out of nowhere and pulled us apart. Like a Greek fury or something."

"Weren't Greek furies women?" another listener objected.

King shrugged. "I don't know. It doesn't matter. He hit Pavel full in the face and he wasn't bruised or _anything_. It was as if it hadn't happened. He was furious though. His eyes were like black pools of everlasting hatred. He just lay there and let the doctor strap him back down. And he smiled at me. Like he knew he could have me again _whenever_ he wanted..."

Uhura watched from a nearby table as a sympathetic shiver rippled through the audience.

"Why couldn't he just take control of Doctor McCoy?" the expert on Greek mythology demanded, obviously retaining some ability to think rationally.

"Because he's never bitten the doctor. He can only control you if he's bitten you and hasn't turned you into a vampire yet."

Cley was seated directly opposite Uhura, his face bloodless. "What if he gets out of sickbay?"

"I don't want to even think about that," King declared.

"I think he should be in the brig," Cley said, chewing on his thumb. "It's bad enough getting bitten once, without him putting some sort of spell on me." He shook his head at King. "It's okay for you. You're obviously getting some kind of kick out of this. I think it's sick."

"...And the only way I can get out of his power is to let him make me a vampire too," Naomi continued. "But he said he'd only do that if I brought him a knife..." She looked up and realised she was under the scrutiny of an icily displeased communications chief.

"I've got to get back to work," she said, "Or Mister Scott is going to drive a stake through my heart." She laughed, but no one else did.

As she walked away, Cley said unhappily, "She was making most of that up, right?"

"Who? Naomi? No."

"Not most of it. All of it."

Most of the group began to follow Naomi's example and get to their feet.

"Ensign King."

Uhura didn't often raise her voice. The whole rec room went silent. Naomi stopped in the door way and looked back."Uh... Yes, Lieutenant?"

Uhura walked over to her and made a faint, disdainful shoo-ing motion with her hand. Naomi almost fell over in her haste to get out into the corridor.

"Did he really ask you for a knife?"

The engineer's face froze. "Yes. Yes, he did. He did really."

"I think it would be a good idea if you didn't visit him again, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Dismissed."

Uhura turned towards the nearest intercom, then decided there was no reason for her not to go to sickbay and warn Doctor McCoy in person. And see Chekov. It sounded like his only visitor so far had been a Boris Karloff fan on turbo drive.

***

McCoy came back to see Chekov a while later. The ensign appeared to be sleeping, but he opened his eyes before McCoy could say anything. The doctor glanced up at the diagnostics, then ran his eye over the patient. The straps were black against Chekov's bruised wrists. His face was pale, his eyes looked twice as dark as usual. The levels on the various monitors were all maintaining their gradual, inexorable decline.

"You must be getting hungry again."

"No." Chekov stared at the wall.

"I know the captain said he'd find a volunteer for you, if we couldn't come up with a cure before now."

"No."

"It's just a matter of keeping you alive in the short term."

Chekov shook his head, slowly. "I will not do this. It disgusts me, and everyone else. I have betrayed my friends..." The ensign's face was expressionless. "And... and risked their lives. I will not do it again. No one will volunteer anyway."

"Pavel, I will volunteer."

"The captain won't allow it. You're too important," Chekov said dismissively, unimpressed. "You only offer because if I die the disease defeats you and you don't like to be beaten."

McCoy sat down on the edge of the bed. "What did I do to deserve that?"

"Nothing," Chekov said with a tired absence of conviction. "I apologise. I thank you for your offer, but no. The hunger isn't so strong now. I can ignore it."

McCoy looked at the bruises again, checked the readings that confirmed Chekov was tense as a piano wire. 'You're lying to me,' he thought. He wondered how long Chekov would be able to maintain the pretence, and if he was fooling himself. It was possible the drugs, the virtual shut down of his metabolism while they'd pumped his stomach, had delivered a setback to the disease, or maybe it had a limited life anyway. Maybe its victims were only supposed to survive long enough to infect at least one other person before they succumbed to some side effect of the infection themselves. He'd have to look into that. McCoy returned to his office to consider Chekov's refusal to even consider biting a volunteer. His next step, he realised, was to get Kirk down here to tell the ensign he was damn well going to do what his doctor told him. McCoy didn't like that, but Chekov was partly right, he didn't like the prospect of losing a patient either.

He turned to the intercom. "Captain? I need to talk to you."

"Is it urgent?" Kirk responded crisply.

_Of course it is_ , McCoy thought. _You know Chekov's dying._ "Yes. I need your authority for something."

There was a silence. McCoy knew what Kirk was thinking. Here he was trying to force something else on his unwilling patient, maybe something else that would only make the situation worse. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Is that soon enough?"

"Yes." It occurred to McCoy that he didn't even know what Kirk was so busy with. For the moment there was only sickbay and one patient with a will to die. Nothing else mattered. Hard as his own job was, Kirk's must be a thousand times harder, having to walk away from one set of problems while you juggled another half dozen.

But even now, McCoy thought, he couldn't give one aspect of this his own whole attention. He was torn between just waiting by the door for Kirk's arrival and going back to his lab, to worry over the negative tests and lifeless cultures. If Chekov wasn't going to let them keep him alive, what did the disease matter? It would die with its host.

He shook himself. He was being as negative as his patient. He wondered again if the disease itself contributed to the paranoia and hopelessness Chekov was experiencing. Of course there would be volunteers. And Chekov would, eventually, bite one of them. Nature would take its course again.

McCoy walked in to the ward. A thin sheen of sweat glowed on Chekov's face. He was definitely stressed; the hunger must be becoming difficult to handle.

"I'm going to let you up." The doctor swiftly slipped one strap then another out of their clasps.

"No! Don't. Why?"

For a moment, Chekov lay immobile, then he snatched his hands up, ran his fingers through his mop of hair and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I've been wanting to do that for hours," he confessed guilelessly.

McCoy relaxed into a smile. "Why didn't you tell someone?"

"Because I'm a vampire. To ask a nurse to scratch my nose for me would destroy my credibility." He laid his hands neatly back by his sides and took a deep breath. "I'd really like to... No!"

McCoy froze, his foot still raised to take a step nearer to his patient and check out whether ultrasound was called for on the bruised wrists. "I wasn't going to..."

"I just... don't quite trust myself if you come any closer."

"That's okay. I've told you, if you want to bite me, you can. It won't do any harm." The casual way he managed to repeat his earlier offer surprised McCoy but Chekov dismissed it again.

"And it won't do any good either. I'm not going to bite anyone else."

"Sooner or later, you will. There's no point you fighting it. I'm willing and..."

"Don't come any closer!"

"Chekov, it's okay now."

"It's not okay," Chekov said, his teeth gritted as McCoy picked up his wrists and looked at the damage. "Get away from me!"

Chapel stuck her head around the door in response to the noise. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing at all," McCoy said smoothly.

"Lieutenant Uhura would like to see you."

McCoy laid Chekov's right hand back on the bed. "Do you have her latest test results yet?"

"Yes. They're on your screen. Shall I stay here with Ensign Chekov?" Chapel was looking worriedly at the newly released patient as she said this.

McCoy shrugged. "Maybe you'd better not. I'll only be a moment."

"If he's hungry..." Chapel started. "Well, I know as well as anyone what the risks are. I'll stay."

McCoy hesitated. "Are you sure, Chris?"

"I can read the diagnostics too, Leonard."

McCoy nodded. "Hear that, Chekov? You have two volunteers. That gives you, and us, another twenty four hours to find the answers. Are you going to be stubborn enough to refuse?"

He turned away when Chekov didn't answer. Chapel moved over to the bed, breaking Chekov's disbelieving gaze at the departing doctor. "Your metabolism is slowing up. You need to feed."

"I would prefer a glass of orange juice, please."

The nurse shook her head and fetched what he'd asked for. He nodded at the shelf beside his bed and didn't sit up until she'd moved away again.

"Why?" he said, holding up his newly freed hands.

"We know it's safe now. And... we can see you don't have any alternative."

"And tomorrow, I bite someone else? And the next day, and the next? What happens when I leave Starfleet and run out of..."

"Friends?"

"Yes. What happens then?"

"We'll find a cure, a long time before that becomes a problem. It's not as if you can't bite the same people twice."

Chekov shuddered. "That is not the point. I can't... do this. And I won't. Why should I? You want me to bite someone in order to survive in order to bite someone again."

"We'll find a cure," Chapel repeated.

"How soon? How sure are you?" Chekov smiled bitterly at her embarrassed expression. "You haven't even begun."

"We don't have results yet. That isn't the same as saying we haven't begun."

***

"He asked her for a knife?" McCoy waved Uhura into a seat. "Do you believe that, or is it just Naomi being Gothic?"

"I gave her the chance to retract. But... I have to say, I don't really believe it. I just worry that she's winding everyone up, maybe even Chekov too."

The doctor sat down himself. "Did she say why he wanted it?"

"She seemed to assume it was in order to escape, but I wondered..."

"If he intended to use it on himself? He is very... negative about this. Understandably. He feels ostracised. But... Hell, we couldn't say, fine, go ahead and bite your shipmates." McCoy rubbed wearily at his temples. "I'm not going to harass him over something Naomi probably made up. He can't do anything to himself with a knife that I won't know about in time to put it right."

"But what if he's planning to use it on someone else?"

McCoy was silent for a moment. "Do you really think he would? Was that your impression? That degree of... what? Ruthlessness? Malice?"

"That degree of desperation, perhaps," Uhura said carefully. "I didn't really fight him. I didn't know what he'd do. You don't have any hope of a cure yet?"

McCoy shrugged. "We know a lot more about the disease than we did two days ago. We know it mimics the host's DNA, so neither the natural immune system or our scanners can spot it. We know it adapts quickly and completely to fool a prospective host's DNA, and that it can retain four or five DNA masks simultaneously. We haven't managed to isolate it, so we're concentrating on attacking it through its behaviour rather than its physical characteristics. That's where we are."

"What happens next time he needs to feed?" Uhura asked quietly.

"I've volunteered to let him. So has Chris Chapel. That's why I don't think he's going to be tempted to turn a knife on anyone. And I think we can get more volunteers. Do you agree that's the case?"

Uhura considered the mildly hysterical gathering in the rec room earlier. "Maybe, if you explained it enough... I'm not sure."

"Would you volunteer?"

"I... I'm not sure."

McCoy reached out and squeezed her hand understandingly. "It's an academic question. He's not prepared to co-operate at the moment. We don't know if whatever kind of driving compulsion he felt earlier is going to cut back in, or if he's just going to die on us." He shrugged. "Sometimes I'm not even sure which would be worse."

Uhura suddenly stood up. "Can he still infect me, Doctor?"

"You're on the margins. Maybe, maybe not. If he bites someone else first, then the answer will be no. The alteration to the virus gets transmitted very quickly and thoroughly, within about fifteen minutes."

"Then I volunteer."

"What?" McCoy stood up too. "You must have misunderstood me..."

"No. I understand completely. I understand him too. But I still believe you can find a cure. Let him bite me too. Then he won't be on his own."

"I see what you're thinking, but he won't. He's not unaware of the risks..."

"And neither am I. At least let me try it."

"I can't, Nyota. Really. To be honest, I've no solid lead for a cure. What are you going to feel like -- What's Chekov going to feel like -- if he infects you and in a week's time if we're no further on? Or a month?"

"No leads?" the captain interrupted from the doorway. 

McCoy looked over and beckoned him inside, shaking his head. "I've tried drugs singly and in cocktails. I've tried radiation. Because of the way it mimics Chekov's own tissue, anything that will harm the disease, harms him equally. It's not localised, so I have to dose all of him, all at once. I can't treat him without killing him."

"I see." Kirk paused for a moment, ordering his thoughts. "Then I can't order him to bite anyone. I could only justify that if you were holding out a prospect of a cure."

"I will find it, Captain. It might take a little time... days, perhaps even weeks..."

"It can't." Kirk came into the office, shaking his head. "You're not a medical research establishment. You're a ship's surgeon. You can't devote your whole time to this..."

"I can't damn well abandon him."

"If you can't do something soon, he'll be moved off this ship, to a Fleet hospital. Is he going to find volunteers there? If he does, they'll be strangers. Think what you're asking him to do. Hell, Bones, I don't like this any more than you do, but at least look at the situation rationally. I need to know there's a point to it, if I'm going to go in there and start giving orders that put volunteers at risk. I have to think about what I do if he refuses to obey me. Are we going to force him? Have you worked out how to do that? There has to be more of an upside than you're giving me, Doctor."

McCoy looked angry. "I can't change the facts, the situation..."

"I know. And Lieutenant..."

Uhura looked up almost guiltily.

"I appreciate what you were trying to do, but I forbid it, absolutely. Doctor McCoy is quite right. No one is going to be bitten twice."

The doctor kicked his chair away from his desk and stood up. "That leaves us..."

"Forty eight hours until a medical specialist unit gets here."

"If he survives that long. Dammit, Captain... What are they going to be able to do that I can't?"

Kirk regarded his Chief Medical Officer sympathetically. "Maybe they'll just be fresh."

"I've done everything. If only we had some starting point. Some clue..."

"You do. The Demirans believe that biting a human cures them," Uhura reminded him.

"He's tried that. Five times, not counting the captain here and Lieutenant Quinn. It didn't work."

"Maybe he needs to bite a Demiran."

Kirk turned to look at Uhura. "It can't be that simple..."

"I thought about it," McCoy admitted. "Just by analogy. For starters, I don't have any Demirans. We wouldn't get a volunteer, they're on the other side of an embargo, and the ethical committees would be down on me like a..."

"If you could make a good case, they might allow it," Kirk interrupted. "Can you make a good case? What's the possible mechanism?"

McCoy sat down again. "The disease adapts very quickly, and very completely. Not just a portion of the infecting population, but all of it is adapted, throughout the host. That suggests that the mechanism is sexual reproduction. That's the only method of transmitting modifications throughout a population. But it's quick... It takes about the same length of time as the circulatory system requires to carry something throughout the body of the host. So if we assume it's just one generation, it would have to happen this way: individual organisms of one sex are found close to the area where material is ingested from the victim, say in the salivary glands. The other sex is found throughout the host. One sex adapts, then takes the alteration to the rest of the population. If the adaptation was lethal, or just rendered the altered individuals sterile..."

"How would that come about?" Kirk prompted.

"If the change was too great. That might be why the host has to feed from live specimens of its own species, or something the disease recognises as its own species. A disease evolved over thousands of years wouldn't have taken on board the concept of aliens yet."

"You make it sound intelligent," the captain complained.

"No. No, just well adapted to not eating meat or dead -- and therefore possibly diseased -- Demirans. It might not be the purpose of the revulsion Chekov reports at all. Such behaviour in the host also encourages the host to infect as many Demirans, or humans, as possible. The same strategy works to benefit the disease in two ways. That's not unusual."

"Right. How about if Chekov were to bite another non-human? But one he doesn't think of as diseased or an animal?"

McCoy frowned. "You mean Spock? You mean I should tell him to bite Spock? Dammit, Jim, a moment ago, you were saying no to volunteers..."

"Because there was no chance of a cure. This would be different."

McCoy turned to his computer screen and brought up various charts and tables that meant nothing to Kirk. The captain sat in patient silence, letting him figure it out.

"It's not an exact analogy, Captain. Spock's DNA is actually more different to Chekov's than average Demiran is to average human."

"Too different?"

McCoy shrugged. "In theory, the more different the better, until it gets to the point where the disease, or Chekov, sees Spock as alien meat rather than humanoid victim. It's probably worth a try, only telling Chekov why it's worth a try might stop it working." He looked across at Kirk. "It might work. It's not likely to do any physical harm, to Chekov or Spock."

"Why do you say 'physical harm'," Kirk demanded.

"Spock's a touch telepath. I don't know what difference that will make."

"I'll ask Spock if he's willing," Kirk said, cutting McCoy short before he could think of any more problems.

McCoy nodded. "Fine. Tell him not to take too long making up his mind. I'll check on the patient."

**Five - Cure**

Naomi King was sitting on the end of Chekov's bed. The navigator had moved up to the head of the bed, his knees pulled up and his hands twisted defensively into his cover. McCoy's automatic review of the diagnostic display told him only that it was trying to make sense of two sets of life signs and failing. Naomi looked even more bloodlessly wan than on her last visit to sickbay. She was wearing a triumphant smile, which she turned up through a degree of brightness for McCoy. "He bit me."

Chekov ignored them both.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" McCoy demanded, then, not waiting for the answer, he yelled for Chapel. "On the neck?" he snapped, turning his attention back to the victim.

"Yes." Naomi dreamily ran her rather chubby little fingers over her pale neck. She was wearing a very low cut, off the shoulder dress in a pale lilac that didn't suit her at all, giving her complexion a positively jaundiced cast. "It didn't hurt. Just like last time."

"You had no business being in here, but you're almost certainly okay," McCoy said dismissively. He picked up a scanner from the trolley of equipment near to the bed and held it near to Ensign King. "The last test I carried out showed that your immune system was responding to samples of infected saliva quite vigorously..." He fiddled with the calibration on the device in his hands. "Oh, my god."

"What is it?" Chapel asked. She swept up to Chekov's bedside, giving Naomi a woman-to-woman killing glare.

"She's not showing any sign of fighting off an infection." He glanced across at Chapel but didn't spell out what that meant.

Naomi shaded her eyes with her forearm. "The lights... it's very bright in here."

"Did you bite her, Chekov?" Uhura asked from the doorway, making McCoy jump.

"Yes," Chekov said. "I did. I told you you should not have unstrapped me."

"I feel... a little... faint," Naomi whispered. "Perhaps I should lie down."

"I told you to stay away from him," Uhura snapped. "What were you doing here?"

"Not now, Lieutenant," McCoy grumbled. He ran his fingers through his hair and continued to study his instruments.

"She's jealous." Naomi said. She reached over and touched Chekov's cheek. "Isn't she, darling?"

"How would I n-know?" he demanded peevishly. Something about his voice drew McCoy's attention. He turned the scanner on the Russian. "Your life signs... Christine, I need some tri-ox. He's showing signs of hypoxia."

The ensign was indeed a little blue around the lips. "Why d-don't you let me d-die?" he stammered

McCoy could feel him trembling as he sought a pulse. He raised the scanner again, just as Naomi shrieked, "I can feel it! I can feel the hunger! I need blood!"

"Shut up," McCoy ordered tersely. "Uhura, take her out of here and don't let her bite anyone. She probably didn't clean her teeth this morning. Chekov, give me the knife."

Chekov raised his head. "I don't know..."

"You have a knife. You're bleeding."

Chekov held out his wrists and shrugged.

McCoy pushed Naomi off the end of the bed, which promptly gave out a wail of alarm. He grabbed the cover and pulled it aside. Blood pooled on the mattress, around a discarded scalpel. Chekov had pierced the arteries in both his ankles.

"Get a saline drip, four units," the doctor snapped. He picked up the scalpel and threw it onto the floor. "Lie back. I need that tri-ox, Chris. Now!"

Having sent an orderly scurrying for the drip, Chapel came back with a hypo. She set about clearing up the blood as McCoy dealt with inserting the drip, and then, muttering and cursing, fixed the damaged arteries.

Chekov lay there, eyes closed. When the few moments of panic were over, the tri-ox administered and colour washing back into his face, he looked up at McCoy. "I didn't bite her. I'm not going to bite anyone."

"I know," McCoy agreed with a calm he didn't really feel. "You just wanted a distraction while you bled to death. Look, you stubborn idiot, the best thing you can do for everyone is to let me concentrate on curing you. Why won't you just bite someone? Give me twelve hours: five hours sleep and seven hours in the lab. I promise you, eventually, it'll work. There's a cure for everything."

"The Demirans have..."

"Chekov, the Demirans do not have Leonard McCoy. Do me a favour. Remember all the thorns I've taken out of your paw over the last year and a half."

"No." Chekov glanced up at Uhura, who'd returned without Naomi. "Would you let me bite you, Lieutenant?"

"Not this time. I'm not clear yet. If you have to do it again, yes, I'll let you."

Chekov smiled bitterly. "And you, Doctor McCoy?"

"Yes. I've already offered. I think I'm more use to you in the lab, but in principle..."

Chekov had closed his eyes again. "You see."

"I am volunteering," a deep even voice pronounced. Spock came straight over to the bed. "Ensign Chekov? Did you hear me?"

The Russian reopened his eyes. "No. I'm not going to bite anyone."

"You will."

"You're going to force me? You're going to use the mind meld to force me?"

Spock leaned over the bed and raised it so that Chekov was sitting, their eyes level. "I will offer to allow you to feed of your own volition. If you refuse, I will offer to help you to overcome your revulsion at the idea by a superficial mental link. If you refuse that, I will simply wait here until the hunger overpowers your self control. That should happen quite soon. You are growing weaker due to your failure to feed, and through natural tiredness. I am in no hurry."

"This is cruel," Chekov said, sounding almost tired enough to give in. "I don't want to. I don't want to bite anyone. I just want it all to be over."

"Doctor McCoy is correct. He cannot research a cure if you constantly distract him with these displays of emotion. You should feed, rest, and allow him to work."

Chekov pulled his knees up and circled them with his arms. "Why don't you all just go away?"

"You may leave us," Spock ordered everyone. He reached out a hand to Chekov's face, only to have it knocked away. "You are hungry."

"I _know_ I'm hungry. You don't have to tell me."

"Then feed."

"I don't want to."

Spock helped himself to a padd from the equipment trolley and sat down on the end of the bed, apparently totally immersed in the file he had called up. Chekov sat and watched him.

***

Five minutes passed.

Chekov couldn't tear his eyes away from Spock's neck. The Vulcan's hair had recently been trimmed and was very short around the nape of his neck. When he swallowed, the first officer's adam's apple bobbed between his chin and the black collar of his tunic, stealing Chekov's attention away from the soft, shadowed flesh under the angle of his jaw.

"I can't... I could not possibly bite you."

"You bit the captain," Spock pointed out, without looking up.

"But I am not going to bite you."

Spock declined to answer him.

After a few more minutes, Chekov began to chew on the knuckles of his left hand. The ward already stank, it seemed, of his own spilt blood, but the salt taste in his mouth when he broke the skin was sharper and stronger than he anticipated.

"Does that help?" Spock asked.

Chekov started. He hadn't noticed that Spock had put down the padd. "No, it doesn't help."

"There is nothing to gain from delaying the inevitable," Spock said mildly.

"Yes, there is. If I can wait twenty four hours this time, and then forty eight, or..."

"That is what you are attempting to do? To ration yourself? To what end?"

Chekov bit his lip, too hard, starting that bleeding too.

"Talk to me. I am not the enemy."

"I know. But..."

"I am not afraid. You cannot harm me."

"You should be afraid." Chekov stared at his right forearm for a moment, as if fascinated by the bruises from the straps. Then he dug the nails of his left hand into the skin and gouged three tracks from wrist to elbow. "You should be afraid."

Spock stood, slowly. He took Chekov's right hand and looked at the injuries. "What are you trying to do?"

"Let me go, please."

Spock shook his head. "Stop fighting us."

"I'm not fighting you. I am fighting myself."

"Then stop. Cease the fight. Cease the struggle. Surrender..."

Chekov snatched his arm back. "No. I will not bite _anyone_."

The Vulcan sat down on the very edge of the bed. "You will."

He lifted his chin, so that his neck, just six inches from Chekov's eyes, was stretched out taut.

The ensign jumped him, like a wild animal, all teeth and tearing nails.

Incisors cut in to his neck, met and ripped away a flap of skin. Somehow, the Vulcan had anticipated that it wouldn't hurt. It stung like fire. And then there was a cold, bruising pain as Chekov dug fingers forcefully into his shoulders, nipped the artery and sucked.

The next sensation was lightheadedness, a response to the sudden decrease in the blood supply to the brain. Spock catalogued it. How it feels to be attacked by a vampire... how Chekov must have felt two days ago, before he'd turned vampire himself.

Spock forced his mouth open to protest the unnecessary violence, but no sound came out. It was as if his vocal cords had been cut. Chekov was lying across him, pinning him to the bed, and the Vulcan discovered he was too weak to throw off his attacker. He closed his eyes, waiting for this to be finished. Chekov's breathing was loud in his ear and the ensign's elbow dug sharply into his diaphragm. The Vulcan had raised mental shields in readiness for this, the inevitable contact with Chekov's mind at this moment. Knowing what emotion one was guarding against made the shields stronger and no faint ghost of the anger or fear he had anticipated came through. Instead he felt despair settling like lead all about him. Then the weight shifted as his neck was exposed again to the cool air.

***

Spock opened his eyes and sat up, ignoring a surge of vertigo. Chekov was sitting beside him. The ensign wiped away the blood from his lips with his hand as McCoy scanned him.

"You're fine." McCoy offered Chekov a handful of medical wipes, then, when he ignored them, laid down the scanner and methodically cleansed the ensign's hands and face of the Vulcan's blood. "I'll ask Nurse Chapel to look at these scratches," he reassured his patient. "Sorry if this is stinging. Chekov? Are you okay?"

Spock put a hand cautiously to his neck. It felt tender, bruised.

"Fascinating," he said absently as he stood and tested the steadiness of his feet. The deck seemed to be moving under them. He put a hand on the bed to balance himself. He realised then that Captain Kirk had returned to the room and was watching him, his eyes narrowed in concern. The Vulcan composed his face into its normal emotionless mask: the nearest he could come to a reassuring smile.

"How about you, Spock?" McCoy asked, unaware of the wordless communication between them. "Are you okay?"

"I believe I am."

"Well, don't wander off. I want to check you over thoroughly."

The dizziness -- the shock, Spock admitted, but only to himself -- was receding. He took a moment to focus on the ensign.

It was a few seconds before Chekov noticed.

"You forced me. You didn't give me a chance. I would have fought it. I would have stopped myself but you didn't let me. I didn't want to bite you. I didn't want to bite anyone..."

"I am aware of all that," Spock said. "When you touched me, I could not avoid knowing your intentions, and your pain at failing to honour them. But I too had no choice. You were dying."

"I'm still dying."

Spock glanced quickly at McCoy and noted the warning shake of the doctor's head. While there was still the possibility that Chekov could rebel against the 'treatment' they'd devised, they could not explain -- excuse -- what they had forced him to do.

"We are all dying in some measure, but while there is life, I have heard humans say, there is hope. Allowing you to bite me was a small price to pay for hope."

Chekov looked at him with contempt. "Hope? You still don't understand, do you? There is no hope. That is why Demirans cut out our hearts. Because there is nothing else to do. I tried. I tried not to bite anyone. You even took that away from me."

He rolled over on the biobed, twisting the thin, silver sheet round himself like a shroud, and buried his face in the pillow. His shoulders shook.

Kirk took a step forward but McCoy grabbed his arm. "He's exhausted, Jim. He was very weak before he fed. I think he'll just fall asleep now."

"I'll stay with him until he does. You check Spock." Kirk shook off McCoy's grip and began extricating the pillow from Chekov's fingers, then straightening the sheet. "You just need to get some rest, Pavel. You'll feel a lot better in the morning. We'll talk about everything then..."

McCoy hesitated, then waved Spock out of the room, following close behind him. He picked up a scanner but didn't turn it on. "Hell..."

"You did what you could, Doctor."

"I don't know. Chekov wasn't being very rational, but... I'm not sure I was either. The fact that Demirans were cured by biting humans... the genetic mismatch was the obvious explanation. I was just too hung up on _stopping_ him biting people, proving he didn't need to. I should have thought of it."

"Come, Leonard, you wished to examine me. Once that is done, you can rest."

"Oh, yes. But, before I do... You must have made contact with Chekov, some kind of mindmeld, while he was biting you. Could Pavel have stopped himself biting anyone?"

"Initially, I think not. And to have asked for help would have exposed Lieutenant Sulu -- and then others -- to suspicion and hence, possibly, to danger. Chekov had seen how Demirans treated their own afflicted, with fear, or loathing, to be exploited or else subjected to a barbaric form of mercy killing. And he knew how humans have long regarded vampires. Even Ensign King's... fascination... only made his situation more intolerable."

"Oh, yes. I guess the worse it seemed, the less he felt he could tell anyone."

"Precisely."

***

Chekov woke late.

He lay for a moment, aware of voices and footsteps beyond his room. He moved his arms and realised he was still unrestrained. A quick visual check confirmed that no guard was watching his door. His head ached a little, and all his joints. His stomach grumbled acidly that it was empty. His mouth was dry and his throat scratchy.

"So how are you feeling this morning?"

He twisted his head. Sulu was standing behind him, a cup of coffee in his hand. So he _was_ being watched. The smell of the coffee gave his stomach pause. Maybe he wasn't hungry after all.

"I feel horrible. What have they done to me now?"

"You have a degree and a half of fever. You're finally fighting the infection."

Chekov frowned. "Why? Why am I fighting it now?"

"Uhura guessed that if biting humans cures Demirans, biting a Vulcan would have the same effect on you. And it looks like she was right."

Chekov was silent.

"That's why Mister Spock had to get you to bite him. He couldn't explain it to you..."

The memory of that final assault hit him. The ensign rolled over, turning his back on Sulu again.

"Chekov? You're going to be okay. The disease has given in. McCoy says your immune system is just mopping up."

"And Mister Spock, is he... going to be okay?"

"Yes. No ill effects. Everyone's fine now."

"Thank God for that."

Sulu walked round the bed. "Are you feeling well enough for visitors?"

"Visitors? What visitors?"

"Well, Gita came in here at the crack of dawn. McCoy just sent her away to get some breakfast, but Uhura and Aaron Cley should be on their coffee break about now. They asked me to tell them when you woke."

"I bit my closest friends, my girlfriend, my immediate superior officer and my captain. If I was a dog, someone would shoot me. Please, tell them I don't want to see anyone."

"I'm not sure they'll listen."

"Oh," Chekov said uncertainly.

"Naomi's resigned," Sulu continued. "Although she looked a lot less cheerful about it when I reminded her that she can't publish anything or give interviews without Fleet clearance."

Chekov twisted his hands into his cover. "I can't believe I did that. I can't believe I did any of it."

"Are you hungry now?"

"No."

"I didn't mean that. I meant, would you like some breakfast?"

"I'm not hungry." The significance of that struck Chekov for the first time. He sat up. "How long..? It must be more than twelve hours and I'm not hungry at all."

"Like I said, we think you're cured."

Like a prisoner reprieved with minutes to spare, Chekov had lost the capacity to take in anything else. "I'm not hungry..." he repeated numbly. "I'm not..."

He realised that Sulu was still talking. "...so the Federation is sending medical teams to Demir. Although administering the cure looks as much like a sociological problem as a medical one. They're talking about a general amnesty for anyone who's infected, and if the Demirans won't accept that the cure works, they'll probably offer resettlement to the victims. The problem will be getting infected Demirans to believe that it's safe to come forward." 

"Sulu..."

"Yes?"

"Gita was here? And Lieutenant Uhura wants to see me? Really?"

"Absolutely. No one is blaming you for any of this, Chekov. I promise you. It shook us all up a little, but..."

The reassurance was beginning to sink in. "Captain Kirk..."

"Just wants you back at work. He spent most of the night in here with you. He said you woke up a few times, a bit delerious. Don't you remember?"

Chekov shook his head. "No. I thought I was... I must have thought he was my father." Memories of half-waking began to surface, of someone being there to offer him water and wipe the sweat off his face, listening to him and telling him again and again that he had nothing to fear.

"Well, he looked all-in this morning. He's gone to catch up on some sleep. but he said he'd come see you this afternoon. And I overheard Spock telling someone he found the experience of being bitten quite interesting."

" _Interesting_?" Chekov almost sounded offended.

Sulu laughed. "What, you think it should be 'fascinating'? I'll tell him."

"No!" Then Chekov looked up at Sulu from under his bangs and let his mouth curve into a smile. "Did you say something about breakfast?"


End file.
